Caught in the Storm (18 page)

Jeremy came to very slowly. It felt like he was in a fog. He tried to turn over but was unable to. Starting to panic, he strained at the bonds but was unable to move. Before he could cry out, he felt a prick and fell back into the fog.

She returned to her seat a few feet away from him. Every ten minutes or so she’d check to make sure she had secured him properly. This was her first premeditated murder. Part of her was nervous, wondering if she could actually go through with it. It was one thing to plan it out, to visualize it in your head, but it was another to hold the knife and plunge it into his warm body. She was keeping him drugged until there was absolutely no doubt that she’d go through with it.

But the other part of her, the larger part of her, knew that he deserved it. Men who hurt and killed women needed to die. And he had killed so many. She loved the thought of having that power over him, holding his life in her hands. Her small, delicate hands that were so much like her mother’s. Her mother, who was an angel in Heaven.

She opened her file of the images of his journal pages in her laptop, needing to memorize all of his deepest darkest secrets in order to break him, before she killed him.

For the next few days, they all hung around the house getting on each other’s nerves. Either the couples retreated to their own spaces or the men disappeared to ‘work out’ and the women gathered around the kitchen.

Kat was drumming her fingers on the table, looking at all the information they had spread out on it. There had to be something that they were missing. Some other place he’d go. Getting up, she walked over to where the map of the local area was, and spread it out.

Jackson came up beside her. “What are you doing?”

“There’s got to be something we’re missing. We call around every stinking day and can’t find him anywhere. He’s got to be hiding somewhere else.” Her fingers continued their rhythm.

“Or he’s dead and he’s laughing at us from the great beyond,” Evie called from the couch.

“We know he’s not dead. Jackson almost caught him,” Lexi said.

“He could also be on the other side of the world, giving up on us and finding new women,” Evie countered.

“Well, this is going to be an awesomely positive day, isn’t it,” Jackson said, shooting his sister a dirty look.

“What? You know it’s a possibility.”

“Actually, I don’t think it is,” Anthony countered while folding the newspaper he was reading. “He’s been obsessed with me for years, and now, finding out there are three women whom he couldn’t kill? No, he’ll never give up, no matter how difficult it is for him to get to you. He wants his revenge.”

“And that’s why we can’t give up. We’ll just keep looking,” Noah concluded as he rubbed Lexi’s back.

“So, are you going to be our cheerleader now?” Evie snarled at him.

“Whoa. What climbed up your ass and died?” Jackson stalked over to Evie.

Evie threw her arms up in the air and stood up. “This whole thing sucks ass. He’s the one who’s free and walking around while we’re all stuck here.”

“Be thankful that between my property and Noah’s we’ve got room to spread out. Think what it would be like if we were all confined to my cottage,” Lexi pointed out.

Kat tried to ignore all of the arguing; she was getting good at it, and kept looking at the map hoping something would come to her. Her eyes became unfocused and the colors started to blur together. All of a sudden, it came to her. She didn’t think anyone heard her gasp, but she should have known better. In an instant, Jackson was next to her.

“What have you got?”

Shaking her head, she tried to come up with something to tell him, something that wouldn’t give it all away. “We know he thinks he’s smarter than us. What if we are looking in the wrong place? Every day we call seedy motels within an hour of here. Well, there are other places he could be.” She tapped the map. “For example, I know there are apartments for rent here. They aren’t in the best area of town, or are hard to rent. Some of them even rent by the week, no questions asked.”

Jackson lifted her up in his arms and kissed her. “You’re brilliant! Come on, let’s start checking apartments!”

Evie got up and walked over to the table. “Great, more places to call every day.” But everyone heard the excitement in her voice.

While they all started looking up places on their laptops and making lists of which ones they were going to call, Kat made a mental note of what she’d noticed on the map. She had traveled all around the area wanting to be familiar with the roads for when she was protecting Lexi. She thought she remembered an old farm house that had a rental sign in front of it, on Tiffani Lane. Jeremy was very smart and he would see an isolated home on a street that happened to have the same spelling as his first victim, to be a sign.

She sat there and battled with herself. Did she share the information or did she sneak out and see if there was anything to it? She could rationalize that if she did sneak out and Jeremy was there, she could always come back and let them know, saying she didn’t want them to get their hopes up if it was nothing. Shaking her head, even she didn’t believe it. They would all know the real reason. She wanted to kill Jeremy herself.

She had everything set up next to the middle table where Jeremy was tied down. She felt this would be the best since she could have tools on the other tables, flanking the one he was naked on.

Making sure everything was lined up perfectly; she took one more look around the barn. She really wanted to do this at night but didn’t want anyone who might be driving by to see lights on in the barn, and there were too many openings to cover up. But in broad daylight, well, maybe that showed how far she had come, not hiding in some dark cellar, letting the tornado kill her father and do the dirty work for her.

She ran her fingers down his arm, feeling the coolness of his skin. She went over and adjusted the propane heater which was warming the area they were in. While she really didn’t care one way or the other if he was comfortable, she did want to make sure he was comfortable and she didn’t want him to get hypothermia. His death would be her pleasure, not nature’s.

Since he should be starting to come out of the drug induced sleep, she walked over and pinched his balls as hard as she could. She was grinning as he jerked awake and immediately tried to pull out of his bindings. She leaned down until she was the only thing he saw.

“Good morning, Jeremy. How are you today?”

“Fucking bitch. What the hell is going on?” he spat at her.

“Now, is that any way to talk to a woman who’s got you spread out naked?” She shook her head at him. “No, it’s not. You have so much to learn. Maybe you’d feel better if you knew a little bit about me?” When he said nothing, she continued, “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Dana Marshall and I’m going to have the pleasure of killing you. Slowly.”

After the whole house was asleep, Kat carefully slid out of the bed without waking Jackson. She crept quietly to the bathroom and put on the dark clothes she had hidden there earlier. Once she made sure her weapon was secure at the small of her back, she carefully opened the door and walked out into the bedroom. She took a moment to look at Jackson, knowing that leaving to find Jeremy would ruin their chances together, but the pull of having her revenge was too strong.

“No, no, no,” Jeremy said, his voice laced with frustration. “You’re doing it all wrong. They’ll be scared enough waking up like this.” He shook his hands. “You don’t need to let them know what you’re going to do to them. It takes something away from the whole experience I think. Give them some time to wonder. Leave a little to the imagination.”

Dana blinked at him, not believing what he’d just said. He didn’t believe her; this must be part of his plan for getting her to let him go. She wasn’t going to fall for it. She injected her voice with more authority, “I’m in charge and you’re going to die.”

“Oh, yes, blah, blah, blah. At least come up with something original; otherwise, you run the risk of them laughing at you if you sound like a B-grade movie.”

She grabbed him by the cock and squeezed as hard as she could, while yanking it down. “I’m in fucking charge.”

Her eyes grew large as his dick became hard and throbbed under her hand. This was all wrong; it wasn’t supposed to be like this. She had to think of some way to gain the upper hand.

“That’s it, everyone likes it rough every once in a while. Harder. Come on, you want to fuck me. Do it,” he all but screamed at her.

She dropped his cock and took a few steps back. Closing her eyes, she brought the image of her mother to mind. Her mother who was taken from her way too soon by this bastard. She couldn’t save her mom, but she could save other women. And it all started here. With Jeremy. She could do this.