Her Dying Breath (5 page)

She peeked through the windows of the studio, not surprised to find more paintings in the front room, dark, sinister reflections of Amelia’s tormented mind. Would the woman ever truly recover?

Brenda’s cell phone buzzed that she had a text, so she clicked to check it.

Tell the Commander I left a present for him.

Slaughter Creek Motel. Room 7
.

Brenda’s pulse clamored, and she immediately texted back.
Who is this? Where are you?

She waited several seconds but received no response, so she grabbed her keys and raced back to her car, then sped toward the old motel.

The person who’d sent the text must have seen her newscast. They’d asked for anonymous tips, but this one sounded ominous.

What exactly would she find when she reached the motel?

T
he night sounds picked up as Brenda wound around the curves of the mountain, then turned onto the road leading to the Slaughter Creek Motel.

The motel was ancient, situated off a beaten path from the main road but close enough that truckers and other travelers needing a layover before they reached the deserted thick forests of the great Smokies could see it.

For a brief moment, she considered calling Nick, but she quickly dismissed the idea. She’d wait until she saw what was in that motel room. After all, this text could be a prank, someone who got his jollies by sending her on a wild goose chase.

Or it could be some crazed person leading you into a trap
.

Maybe someone who didn’t want her snooping around. Hadn’t Arthur Blackwood murdered everyone who’d tried to expose his secrets?

She shivered, then patted her purse, where she kept her revolver. After being mugged in an alley in Nashville when she was a student, she’d bought herself some protection the next day.

Her instincts told her that this text was for real. Maybe whatever the person had left in the motel would lead her to the names
of the subjects in the experiment. Or to the other people who’d been involved—Jake and Nick suspected that someone higher up in the military or CIA than their father had run the experiment. If she broke the story, Nick couldn’t leave her out of the investigation.

Her decision made, she focused on the road. Headlights nearly blinded her as she raced around Blindman’s Curve, tires screeching as she rounded the switchback. An eighteen-wheeler barreled past from the opposite direction, and she slowed as an SUV pulled out from a dirt road and turned in front of her. Frustration made her curse, and she blew the horn to prompt the driver to move on, but he ignored her.

Minutes crawled by and two other cars whizzed past, lights flickering off the asphalt. A warning sign for falling rock glowed from the rocky wall beside her, and water trickled down the side of the mountain.

Finally the driver of the SUV turned onto another dirt road leading to a fishing lodge that rented cabins, and she waved him on and sped up. By the time she reached the motel, her palms were sweating and she’d imagined a dozen different scenarios, half of which left her dead.

The person who sent the text could have been a psycho. Someone who intended to do God knows what to her. The one-story motel backed up to the woods—a murderer could leave her body in the forest, and no one would ever find her.

She hadn’t told anyone about the text either, so it might take days for someone to even realize she was missing.

Maybe she should alert her boss.

But if this lead turned out to be nothing, she’d look like a fool and lose his respect. Being an investigative reporter meant digging in the trenches and taking risks. If she showed weakness now, no one would take her seriously as a professional.

Still, as she parked at the motel, she checked the .22.

The blinking lime-green lights of the motel sign created a strobe-light effect as they swirled across the nearly deserted parking lot. The lights on the word C
REEK
had burned out, so the sign read S
LAUGHTER
M
OTEL
.

A rusted pickup truck, minivan, and RV were parked in the lot, but all of the rooms looked dark.

She stepped from the car, then scanned the row of rooms in the L-shaped building.

Room 7 sat at the end of the row, shrouded in shadows and wedged up against bushes that bordered the woods beyond.

For the briefest of moments, she considered asking the motel owner to accompany her to the room, but decided to check the room first. If the person who’d texted her had left something inside, the door was probably unlocked.

Nerves on edge, she scanned the parking lot again, then raked her gaze across the woods and vehicles in the parking lot, looking for someone lurking around to jump her.

She could already envision the headlines: “Reporter Mutilated at the Slaughter Creek Motel. Body Parts Sent to Arthur Blackwood.”

What if the person who’d texted her was working for Blackwood and planned to eliminate anyone investigating him? He’d already killed half a dozen people to cover up the project.

She might be next.

She slid her hand over the gun in her purse, stiffened her spine, and forged ahead.

She didn’t intend to die today.

The gravel in the parking lot crunched beneath her shoes as she crossed to the room, and she looked through the window, but it was too dark to see inside.

She slowly reached out and touched the doorknob. Just as she’d expected, the knob turned, and the door swung open.

The room was pitch-black, and an acrid smell assaulted her. She flipped on the light by the door, but it didn’t work, making
her more uneasy, and forcing her to take another step inside the room.

Vile odors swirled around her, and her stomach churned, her ears honed for the sound of someone inside. She covered her mouth with one hand to keep from gagging and bumped into the lamp on the end table nearest the door.

Heart racing, she flipped on the lamp, then gasped in horror.

A naked man lay on the bed, his arms and legs tied to the post. His face and neck were discolored, and a piece of wire was wound around his throat. But it was the wide-eyed terror in his unblinking eyes that would haunt her forever.

He hadn’t died in his sleep or by his own hand.

He had been murdered.

Nick parked at Jake’s, noting the feminine touches Sadie had added to the Victorian house—a wreath of dried grass with spring flowers woven into it, the birdbath, the white bench where Ayla had left a doll, propped up with a toy teacup beside it.

He couldn’t believe his macho brother, the sheriff of Slaughter Creek, had a little girl. Judging from the few times he’d been around them, Ayla had him wrapped around her little finger, too.

Just like Sadie had, ever since the summer before their senior year in high school. Their father’s efforts to stop Jake from dating Sadie hadn’t worked.

Now they both knew Arthur Blackwood’s reasons for trying to keep them apart—he’d been afraid Jake would discover the truth about his project and what he’d done to Amelia.

Nick knocked on the door, determined to stay on an even keel with Jake. For too many years there’d been a chasm between them. Too bad it had taken the arrest of their father to bring them back together.

Jake opened the door, a worried look on his face. “Come on in.”

Nick glanced around for Ayla and Sadie. “Where’s the family?”

“Ayla’s in bed,” Jake said. “Sadie just left to drive over to Amelia’s studio.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Amelia left the facility where she was staying.”

“Can she do that? Check herself out, I mean?”

“Yes. No.” Jake raked a hand through his hair. “Patients can leave, but they’re supposed to receive clearance from their therapist first.”

“Amelia hasn’t been cleared?”

“Not to leave without supervision.” Jake sighed and led him to the den. “Anyway, Amelia has made progress, and Sadie thought she might show up at the studio.”

“I hope you find her,” Nick said, hating his father again for the pain he’d caused Sadie and her sister.

The comfortable leather sofas were Jake’s, but a corner held Ayla’s dollhouse, and he was sure the throw pillows and painting of wildflowers on the wall were compliments of Sadie.

Jake offered him a drink, but he shook his head. “What’s going on, Nick?”

Nick removed the note his father had given him. He’d bagged it to send to forensics, although he doubted they’d get prints off of it, but he wanted Jake’s take on it first. “I saw the Commander.” He refused to call him Dad.

“Anything new?”

“He wouldn’t give up the list of subjects or anyone else involved in the project,” Nick said. “But he showed me this.”

Jake’s eyebrows arched in question as he read it. “Who sent it?”

“I have no idea,” Nick said. “It’s possible that it came from one of the subjects who wants revenge on the Commander.”

“What does he expect us to do? Put the bastard in protective custody?”

Nick barked a laugh. “He may be a masochist, but he’s no fool. He knows we’d just as soon leave him to his victims and let them dole out his punishment.”

Jake nodded, but Nick’s cell phone buzzed. He checked the caller screen, surprised to see Brenda Banks’s number.

“You gonna get that?” Jake asked.

Nick shook his head. “It’s Brenda. I ran into her at the courthouse. She’s pushing for more on the story.”

“I wish we had more,” Jake muttered.

The phone stopped buzzing, then started up a second later.

“You might as well answer it,” Jake said. “When Brenda wants something, she doesn’t give up easily.”

Like when she’d wanted to date Jake.

Nick connected the call, prepared to blow her off. “Listen, Brenda, I told you—”

“Shut up and listen,” Brenda said in a strangely high-pitched voice.

Nick’s hand tightened around the handset. “What?”

“There’s a body, a dead man,” Brenda choked out. “At the Slaughter Creek Motel.”

“You’re there now?”

“Yes,” Brenda said. “You have to see this, Nick. He was murdered.”

Nick’s mind raced. “How did you find the body?”

“I’ll explain when you get here.”

Nick began to pace. “Is anyone else with you?”

“No,” Brenda said. “I called you first. I’m in room seven.”

“Sit tight and don’t touch anything,” Nick said. “I’ll be right there.”

Nick headed to the door as he ended the call. “There was a murder at the Slaughter Creek Motel.”

“Let me call Sadie, and we’ll ride over together.”

Jake shoved the limerick back into Nick’s hand. Nick glanced at it, and a sudden feeling of trepidation came over him. “What if this murder has something to do with the note the Commander received?”

A tense second passed. “We can’t assume that,” Jake said.

“No, but it’s possible.”

“True. Or the note could simply be someone toying with the Commander. For all we know, he could have written it himself, just to mess with us.”

Nick hadn’t considered that.

“I wouldn’t put it past him.” Although the timing hit him as odd. “What if Amelia sent Dad that limerick? The fact that she’s missing now is suspicious.”

“Don’t go there, Nick. Let’s get the facts first. For all we know, Amelia just took a long walk somewhere.”

“Find her,” Nick said. “If anyone has reason to send the Commander hate mail, Amelia does. I’ll call you from the motel when I see what we’re dealing with, and you can meet me there.”

Jake reluctantly agreed, and Nick jogged to his car. Questions pummeled him as he drove down the road, then around Blindman’s Curve, and he couldn’t help but think about Sadie and her sister. Their parents had died on this road, all because the Nettletons had discovered that the doctors were mistreating Amelia.

He passed a stalled SUV on the shoulder of the road, then flew the few miles to the motel. The gaudy green light from the sign blinked, streaking the sky and road with puke-green lines, reminding him of a cheap Vegas strip club.

A pickup and RV sat at one end of the parking lot, Brenda’s Bimmer a few spaces down. The door to room 7 stood slightly ajar. Nick gripped his gun as he climbed from his car, scanning the property.