Closer Than You Think (6 page)

The long pause told her she had not. ‘You’ll call me if you need me?’ he asked.

‘I just did,’ she said softly. ‘I love you, Dad.’

‘I love you too, baby,’ he whispered. He cleared his throat. ‘Call me again, please. Soon. The sound of your voice is so much nicer than all those texts and emails.’

Faith swallowed hard. ‘I will, Dad. I promise. I have to hang up now. I’m at the curvy part of the road. I need to concentrate on driving.’

‘I don’t like you being all alone in that big house,’ he said, making one last-ditch effort to keep her on the line. ‘It’s in the middle of nowhere and anybody could break in and hurt you.’

‘Maybe,’ Lily interjected quietly, ‘you’d feel better if Faith had an alarm system installed.’

‘It would cost too much,’ her father said. ‘She doesn’t have money to spend on an alarm.’

‘Actually, it already has one. Gran’s attorney said they put one in years ago because they’d had some squatters.’ Faith didn’t mention her gun. Her father didn’t like guns.

‘I’d feel better if you got a dog,’ he said. ‘A big dog. With big teeth.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ Faith said, surprised to realize how appealing the idea was. A dog would make coming home to an empty house a lot less lonely. ‘I really have to go now. I love you both.’ She tapped her earpiece to hang up before he could offer any new worries or before Lily could finish the interrogation she’d started.

Tim McGraw’s voice took over her speakers once again, but she turned the volume down a little so that she could think.

Calling Detective Vega would have to wait until she got to the house. She didn’t have the number for Miami PD programmed into her new phone, so she’d have to Google it.

A glance at the clock on her dash had her grimacing. Traffic had made her a few minutes late. The locksmith was probably there already, but she wasn’t about to speed on these curves. She hoped the man wouldn’t leave without—

The animal came out of nowhere, hurling itself into her path. A
big
animal. Faith slammed on the brakes and wrenched the wheel to the left to avoid it – just as the road curved again.

Before she could adjust, her tires slipped off the edge of the road, propelling her down the embankment. Panic gripped her as trees flew by and she desperately pumped the brake.

And then what she’d glimpsed sank in. Long dark hair. An outstretched arm. Fingers. Flesh, covered with blood.
Oh my God. Not an animal.

It had been a girl. Naked. In the middle of the road.

Mt Carmel, Ohio, Monday 3 November, 5.02
P.M.

There was a buzzing in his ears.

‘Hey. Hey, buddy. Are you okay?’

He blinked, growling when someone shook his shoulder. His head hurt and he was woozy. He was also lying on the ground outside.
What the hell?
Memory returned in a rush. The trespasser, the guy from the power company.
Ken.
The bastard who’d tranqed him.
The dead bastard
whose body was still lying in plain view around back.

And the girl. Arianna. She was gone.

Shit
. She was gone.
I have to find her. I have to get her back. She’ll tell. She’ll ruin everything
. He tried to sit up, but someone pushed him back down.

‘Don’t move.’ A man. Older, by the sound of his voice. ‘You’ve been in an accident. I saw your truck crashed up the road. How’d you get all the way down here? Well, you’re lucky I came by. Nobody lives here yet. Name’s Tommy Dilman, by the way. I’ll call 911.’

The hell you will.
Forcing his eyes open, he saw Dilman kneeling beside him, pulling a cell phone from the pocket of his coveralls. Fury poured through him, giving him the strength to grab the phone from Dilman’s hand and throw it as hard as he could.

‘Hey!’ Dilman protested. ‘What the hell is wrong with you, buddy?’

He waited until Dilman had turned to retrieve the phone, then lunged to his feet and leaped, bringing the older man down in a tangle of limbs. Stunned, Dilman lay on his back, staring up.

He didn’t know what the old man was doing here. All he knew was that he was not calling 911, nor was he leaving here alive. He drew his switchblade from his pocket, and plunged it into Dilman’s throat. Warm blood spurted all over his hands as the man struggled like a fish on a hook. A minute later, the guy wasn’t moving at all.

He rolled off Dilman’s body and looked up at the sky. It was getting dark. He’d been out for a couple of hours at least. Plenty long enough for Arianna to get away, goddammit.

She’d escaped in the power company’s truck. But how had she escaped the basement? She never could have untied her ropes. And yet she was free.

He thought of Roza, bending over Arianna, talking to her, and his fists clenched.
The ungrateful little bitch. She cut Arianna loose. I’ll beat her half to death, and if she sasses me, I’ll beat her the rest of the way
. At least Roza hadn’t freed Corinne Longstreet. He had the only key to the shackles. Arianna was the real threat.
She could be in the next town by now. Getting help
.

Wait.
The tranq-induced fog in his mind was beginning to clear. What had the old man said?
I saw your truck crashed up the road.
Dilman had thought he worked for the power company, that he’d wrecked the truck.

At least Arianna hadn’t gotten far. Pushing to his feet, he staggered for a few steps, finally getting his balance. Damn, he had a mess on his hands. Dilman was lying in a pool of his own blood, and Ken’s hand was visible at the back corner of the house. It was good that Dilman hadn’t seen the hand and investigated. He would have known the real meter reader was dead.

But now I have two bodies to hide. Sonofabitch
.

He made his way behind the house to the old carriage house where he hid his van. He backed it out, keeping to the gravel road. Gravel was a wonderful material. It showed little evidence that it had been driven over and could be raked so that it looked perfectly undisturbed. None of the caretakers who’d come to cut the grass had ever suspected he’d been there.

Parked in front of the house was the old man’s car. On the door was a magnetic sign. Dilman’s Lock and Key. The guy was a locksmith.

He ground his teeth in rage. Faith had been a busy girl today. First calling the power company, and then a locksmith. That bitch would have locked him out. Kept him from what he’d claimed as his own. What he’d created. What he’d collected.

He drew a breath, calming himself. First order of business was to retrieve Arianna. Then he’d dispose of the two bodies. Then he’d find Faith and finish what he’d started. And when he was all done? He’d punish Roza severely and pick up where he’d left off with Arianna.

Mt Carmel, Ohio, Monday 3 November, 5.05
P.M.

Faith lifted her head when the Jeep stopped moving.

Tim McGraw was singing the closing strains of his song, the sound surreal in the absolute quiet. She touched her brow bone, her fingers coming away sticky.
I’m bleeding
.

And something smelled bad. The airbag, she realized. The passenger-side bag had deployed. She’d managed to turn the steering wheel as she’d gone down the embankment so that she’d hit the first line of trees broadside rather than head on. The Jeep must have bounced and slid the rest of the way a lot more gently, because she now rested hood-first against a tree and the driver’s airbag was still intact.

She turned off the ignition and sat motionless for a moment, just breathing. Her memory re-engaged with a jolt.

Oh my God.
The girl.
There’d been a girl. She’d been . . . naked. Naked? How could she have been naked?
Did I hit her? Oh God, please let her be okay. Please.

Panicked, Faith groped at the Jeep’s door, needing a minute to remember how it opened.
You’re in shock.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding the girl.
What if I killed her?

The door made a horrible sound as she shoved at it with her shoulder, but it finally opened and Faith stumbled out, falling to her knees.
911. Call them
. She needed her phone.
Where is it?
She had one. She’d just been on it, talking to her father.
But with the hands-free.
She tapped her ear. The earpiece was still there. Good.

She’d put the phone in her coat pocket when she’d left the office. She patted her pockets, finding her gun in the left and her phone in the right. Hands shaking, she tried to dial but smeared blood all over the phone’s screen. She wiped her hand on her skirt and tried again, finally dialing the three numbers.

‘This is 911. What is your emergency?’

Faith tried to stand, but fell back to her knees. Stifling what would have been a shrill scream of pain, she dropped her phone back into her pocket and started to crawl. ‘There was a girl in the road. I swerved. Hit a tree.’

‘Are you injured?’

‘Yeah.’ She blinked when her eyes burned, then realized it was blood in her eyes. She swiped at her forehead with her sleeve. ‘Cut my head.’

‘I need you to stay still, ma’am. You could have other injuries. What is your name?’

‘Faith. Faith F—’
Frye
, she’d almost said. But that wasn’t true anymore, was it? She blinked hard, making herself think. ‘Faith Corcoran.’ She started crawling again, up the steep embankment, whimpering when she slid back a few feet. If she wasn’t careful, she could tumble all the way down. She wasn’t going to look. She already knew it was steep.

‘Stay put, Faith. I’ve sent help. They’ll be there in a few minutes.’

‘I can’t. There was a girl. In the road.’ She dug her fingers into the dirt and kept climbing. ‘She was hurt. I didn’t hit her. I swear I didn’t.’ Her fingers touched asphalt and she dragged herself up the final foot of embankment and on to the road. There she was. The girl. ‘I see her.’

‘The girl?’ the operator asked carefully, as if Faith were delusional.

‘No,’ Faith snarled. ‘Frosty the damn snowman. Of course the girl. But . . . she’s not moving.’

She dragged herself to where the girl lay. She’d been right. The girl had no clothes. Which allowed Faith to see every oozing wound on her body.
Jesus, Mary and Joseph.

‘Dear God. Who did this to you, honey?’ she whispered.

‘Faith?’ the operator asked. ‘Are you still there?’

‘I’m here. With the girl. She’s all bloody. Her face is bruised. And cut. She’s . . . naked. Someone’s cut her, all over.’ Wiping her bloody hand on her skirt, Faith pressed her fingers to the girl’s neck, relieved when she felt a pulse, though it was faint. ‘She’s alive, but barely. I can hardly get a pulse. She’s non-responsive.’

‘Can you describe her?’

‘Young. High school maybe. Long dark hair, past her shoulders. She appears Hispanic. Tall. Five-nine or so.’ The setting sun had cast the road in shadow, but the gash in the girl’s thigh was big and bad enough to be easily visible. ‘She may have been shot in the leg. Maybe in the arm, too, but there’s too much blood to tell.’ Faith struggled out of her coat and spread it over the girl, her own body sagging from the exertion.

Pushing the edge of her coat to the middle of the girl’s leg, she exposed the wound, then leaned closer, frowning. ‘Looks like somebody did a patch job on the bullet hole, but it busted open.’ She took off her scarf, balled it up, and pressed it to the wound. ‘I’m putting pressure on the leg. She’s lost a lot of blood. Tell whoever’s coming to hurry.’

‘They’ll be there in a few minutes. What about you? How’s your head?’

‘It hurts,’ she said tersely. ‘And I’m tired.’

‘Don’t sleep yet. Stay on the phone with me.’

‘I’ve had a concussion before. I know the drill.’ Squinting into the growing darkness, Faith searched for any sign of whoever might have dumped the girl there, but she saw nothing but trees. Whoever had left her was gone. Or hiding.

That they might come back to finish what they’d started was not impossible. ‘They won’t get at you again,’ she whispered to the girl, who made no sign that she was aware of anything that was happening. Her loss of consciousness might be a mercy in this situation. ‘They’ll have to go through me first.’

Taking her gun from the pocket of her coat, Faith staggered to her feet. Standing in place, she turned a slow circle, watching for any threat. All while she prayed that the Mount Carmel cops responded faster than the Miami cops she’d known.

Mt Carmel, Ohio, Monday 3 November, 5.20
P.M.

Arianna couldn’t have gotten far. It was getting dark, so he switched on the van’s high beams, driving slowly, scanning the trees along the roadway. Within minutes the wrecked power company truck came into view. Arianna had crashed into a tree. The hood was a crushed mess.

Even better. If she was hurt, she might still be in the truck. Leaving the van on the road, he jogged to the wreck.
She’s there. She’s got to be there
.

But she wasn’t. The truck’s cab was empty. He clenched his teeth so hard that a sharp pain streaked up his neck into his skull. She’d escaped. Again.

Relax. There’s blood all over the seat. This isn’t so bad.
Bleeding like she was, she had to be around here somewhere. He looked around the truck, careful not to touch it. His fingerprints weren’t in anyone’s system and he planned to keep it that way.

He walked slowly through the trees, following the trail she’d left in the dirt as she’d dragged herself forward. He had to give her some credit. She had guts and spirit.