Leave Yesterday Behind (24 page)

Chapter 36

“Where’s Nick?”

Callie surprised herself and tried not to let it show. She sounded so ordinary. As if she’d asked what time it was or what the weather was like.

The killer looked her up and down slowly. He nodded to himself, as if he were pleased about something.

Her insides revved up like a horse about to burst from the blocks at the Kentucky Derby. Adrenaline exploded in waves, bringing on an almost manic state. She thought she might take this guy on.

She fought that feeling, trying to force her mind to put on the brakes. No matter how physically charged she was, she couldn’t act on impulse. He outweighed her by fifty pounds or more. And especially in her depleted condition, he would snap her like a twig. No, she would have to win the mind games with this psycho first.

And she had to know about Nick.

“I’m afraid Nick is no more,” the stranger said sadly.

Callie met his eyes. “You’re lying.” She kept her voice low and calm. “It’s not your style. You like to toy with your victims. Nick hasn’t been here but ten minutes, tops.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the door, a slow smile spreading across his ordinary features. “You’re familiar with my work. I’m flattered.”

“Don’t be.”

He chuckled. “Well, I do love playing with my girls. Men don’t interest me at all.” He gazed at her with wistful fondness. “And you were always the prize, Jessica. Nick just turned out to be an incidental loose end that I planned on tidying up somewhere down the road. Having the two of you in a single spot simply let me know fate had stepped in to guide me.”

He’d called her Jessica. Callie didn’t know if he was nuts enough not to be able to distinguish between her and her character or if he played a game with her.

What should she do? The last time she’d found herself in a dangerous position, she’d tried to let Jessica do all the talking. That had almost worked until mouthy Callie Chennault stepped in for a moment and blew things.

But who was this man? What did he have against Nick? It seemed to her that he had some vendetta against Nick that was totally unrelated to his fixation on her. Or Jessica. And what did he want with Jessica? She’d try to find out.

“Jessica isn’t here right now. I’m Callie, her friend. And I just want to know where Nick is.”

He eyed her with a speculative gleam in those muddy brown eyes. “You can’t fool me, Jessica. You may dress down like a little country girl in this bump on the map, trying to fool everyone—but I know the real you.” He laughed. “Pretending to be this Callie is smart, though. It works some of the time. I know people still bother you, but it’s really not a very good disguise. I recognized you. Other people do, too. I’ve seen them wait for you outside the studio in New York just to get your autograph. It can be twelve degrees with a harsh wind blowing, and there’ll always be a few of Jessica’s loyal legion waiting for her to appear.”

“If you’ve seen me in New York, why didn’t you ever come up and ask me for an autograph? I give them to fans all the time.”

He frowned. “Because I’m not your fan. Because you’re too perfect. Because you and all those like you kept her from a job.”

“Who? Do you have a friend who is an actress? I can help get her an audition with our casting director.”

“It’s too late. She’s dead.”

Shit. Callie had hit a wall with this line. Where could she go now? She sensed she needed to keep him talking. She had to find a way to play for more time and hope Nick was alive somewhere in the cottage. Though every instinct told her to run, she refused to budge until she could find him. Without Nick, she didn’t have a life.

She took a deep breath. She decided to go the sympathy angle. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” he snapped. “You didn’t know her. You wouldn’t have given her a second glance on the street. But it was your kind who broke her.”

His face crumpled. He slid down the wall at his back, coming to rest on the ground with his hands braced on his knees. He seemed like a lost little boy all of a sudden, not an adult in his twenties.

She decided to press him while he seemed vulnerable. She had to learn why he did what he did to all those women. And she needed to find out why he was after Nick.

“Did you love her?” she asked softly.

“Yes.” His voice was but a whisper. “I did. Years ago. And then the beatings pretty much killed the love.”

His eyes glazed over, as if he were no longer in the present. His voice came from across a distance, almost child-like. She tamped down the revulsion building inside her.

“She was beautiful. Like an angel. I saw the pictures in books on a shelf in the closet. She wanted to be on TV. She used to rock me when I was little and tell me about going on auditions. How she was going to be famous. How she wanted to come into people’s homes and be their friends. She’d been lonely, and TV had always been her friend.”

So it was his mother he spoke of. But what were the connections?

Callie dared to take a few steps toward him. She knelt down, still out of his reach, but she wanted to be on his level.

“Did she ever get to be on TV?”

“No. She had me instead. A one-night stand with a traveling salesman. She was working a convention as a floor model and hit it off with him. He lied about where he worked. Where he lived. What his real name was.”

The bitterness flowed with each word that rapidly tumbled out. “She couldn’t find him when she found out about me. And her face got fat and her feet swollen, and nobody wanted her. She had no money, no family, no friends that stuck around. Just me. Her little punching bag.”

“She blamed you?”

“Sometimes. She would love on me one minute and punch my lights out the next. She couldn’t afford a babysitter. She couldn’t get an agent. Her looks faded. She did what she could to put food on the table. And it always involved a line of men coming and going at all hours.”

He sprang up and had her around the throat with one hand before she could move. He yanked her to her feet and slammed her into the wall. A rush of black clouded her vision, followed by a myriad of stars exploding in bright yellows and oranges.

He leaned close to her. “She always knew she was better than anyone on those crummy soaps. I’ll bet she could act rings around you, Jessica. You were the one that she hated the most. You had it all—the fame, the looks, the money. You and all those like you kept her from becoming a star.”

His fingers tightened around her throat as his free hand stroked her breast. A shiver of revulsion ran through her as she fought the rising bile.

“Hot for me, Jessica?”

Callie brought her knee up hard into his groin, giving the thrust everything she had. Suddenly, the pressure on her throat ended as he fell back to the floor. She gulped in the sweet air. It made her lightheaded, but she knew this was her one chance to escape.

Still dizzy, she took a shaky step over him with one leg. As the other followed, his hand snaked around her ankle and sent her crashing to the floor. She tried to catch herself, falling on one wrist. She cried out in pain, knowing she’d broken it when she heard the snap.

The killer flipped her over and straddled her, his weight pinning her down. Desperate to stay alive, she clawed at his face with her good hand. Bright red streaks appeared a moment later. He slapped her hard, twice, and she tasted blood in her mouth. He forced her arms above her head and yanked a ball of twine from his pocket, wrapping the string tightly around her joined wrists again and again. The pain from her injury caused her to go lightheaded, and she was afraid she would pass out.

Callie could barely breathe with his weight on her, much less scream for help. Suddenly, she caught sight of a pair of handcuffs. He looped one cuff around her immobilized wrists, attaching the other to a chair leg. And now her arms were useless. She tried bucking him off, but that proved futile. He was too heavy, and her legs began to go numb from the pressure.

He stretched out on top of her, cooing in soft tones meant to calm her as he stroked her cheek. But she knew what lay ahead. She was aware of what had been done to the girls who resembled her.

And how long he tortured them.

His hands slipped to knead her breasts roughly, pinching the nipples, moving lower, between her legs. He cupped her and began to rub his palm against her slowly, smiling as he did.

Callie refused to cry. She refused to whimper. She would not give him a minute of pleasure, seeing her beg for her life. She would endure this. She would keep thinking. She would figure out how to get out of this mess. She had to.

Or she’d go insane.

She heard a noise and lifted her head, looking past him. His hands trailed down her thighs and calves to her feet. He slid off her sandals then slammed the heel of his hand down on her smallest toe. She gasped in pain, knowing he’d broken it.

“Payback,” he muttered, as he slid down her body and began to lick her foot.

But she now knew where the noise came from. Beyond, in the arch of the kitchen, Nick dragged himself along the floor, an unfamiliar object in his hand. His face was a bloody mess. One eye swollen shut. But he moved with a single purpose. He was crawling to save her.

If this bastard saw Nick, he would kill him. She had to distract him. A calm descended upon her, bringing everything into a sharp focus.

She was ready for her close-up, Mr. De Mille.

“Oh,” she moaned. She began writing, twisting her torso, arching her back. “Oh, God, yes,” she slurred out.

He stopped sucking her broken toe, a look of surprise on his face. Callie wet her lips and decided her Academy-winning performance was here and now.

“Please. Don’t stop.” Her chest heaved. “No one’s done that before. I’m . . . I’m so fucking turned on by it.”

He moved back up, sliding his body against hers. She swallowed hard, forcing her gag reflex to behave, and gave him her best Jessica smile. The one that seduced every man. The one that made them putty in her capable hands.

“You want more?” His hard penis pressed against her thigh.

“Yes,” she whispered breathlessly, closing her eyes for fear they would betray her disgust. Seconds later, she was glad she’d done so.

The killer pushed his fingers into her hair, holding her head in place as he began to kiss her. His tongue forced her lips open, and she met it with her own. She had done a love scene in acting class with a guy who’d had nasty garlic breath and the world’s worst case of acne. The teacher let the bit go on for almost two minutes. It got more slobbery by the minute, like she was kissing a drooling Doberman. Callie drew on that memory and simply imagined this was Leonard. She’d made it through Leonard once. She would triumph again.

She wiggled seductively under him, pushing everything from her mind.

“I’m better than Nick, right?” he asked, his mouth coming off hers.

“Mmm, much better,” she lied.

Then she heard an odd noise and felt a vibration. He gave a cry of anguish as he tensed, his entire body going stiff. He collapsed on top of her and didn’t move.

Callie opened her eyes as Nick pulled the man off her. The killer lay on the floor, paralyzed, his eyes wide and frightened. She bit her lip to steady herself as tears welled up in her eyes.

Instead, she gazed at the man she loved. “Are you all right?” She eyed his bruised and battered face. “You look like one of your fastballs hit you in the face. Multiple times.”

Nick crawled next to her, holding a hand against his ribcage. “I think he broke a few of these.” He rubbed the area gently. “What about you?”

Callie looked over at the killer. His eyes, filled with pain and anger, stared into hers. She knew he was conscious, but he wasn’t moving. She looked back at Nick.

“Stun gun,” he got out. “Used it on me. Then kicked the shit out of me.” His crooked grin caused her heart to flip over.

“Did research. For a book. Hero got tasered. Pain’s unbelievable. Can attest to it now.” He shook his head and studied the killer for a moment. “Right now he’s paralyzed. Every single muscle’s cramping tighter and tighter. Got no control over his body.”

He brought a hand to her cheek and touched her reassuringly. “Need to get help.” He pushed himself to an upright position, grimacing as he did. “Gotta get these off you.”

He crawled over to the stranger who had turned their lives upside down and searched his pockets for the key. All the while the man’s eyes never left her. Nick found the key and brought it back, releasing the handcuffs.

“Scissors,” he gasped. He scooted over and pulled open a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out a pair. He returned to her and cut through the twine that bound her wrists.

She sucked in a quick breath as pain shot through her. His jaw tightened as he gently eased her arms down. “Swollen. Looks broken.”

He glared over at their attacker. “I want this bastard to go away for a long, long time.” He reached over and smoothed her hair. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you up and away from this fucker.”

Somehow, Nick managed to get on his feet and help her rise. He escorted her to the sofa before he hobbled over to the phone and punched in a number. She could hear the ringing in the silence of the cottage. Only Nick’s labored breathing disturbed the quiet.

“It’s La Chappelle.” He paused. “We’re out back. In the cottage. Bring your cuffs, Phillips. We got him.”