Stalking Death (39 page)

Bored, perhaps, with their tame depredations, or perhaps given the official word they had to cool it on campus for a while, Alasdair and his cronies had gone cruising for adventure and a victim. They had picked up a girl, assaulted her, and dumped her. Far from school, thinking they were home free. So why hadn't they been? Did this have something to do with Shondra's nanny cam? With whoever was dumped in that fire?

It was clear that deciding how to dispose of the car would take a while, and I knew Suzanne would call. I shifted so I wasn't lying on my pocket and started inching the fabric up to get at the phone. I was scared stiff and shaking. I had no illusions about what these guys would and wouldn't do. They'd do anything necessary to cover their miserable asses. Look what they'd done to Jamison and Shondra. To the guy in the fire.

Every sound I made seemed enormously loud as I inched toward the phone. Finally, I worked it out of my pocket. Now I just had to flip it open and turn it off. Slowly, slowly. It was like being in a straight-jacket. There wasn't room to bring my other hand around. I'd have to do this one-handed. Despite the cold, my hand was slick with sweat. As I flipped it open, the phone slipped away with a small clang.

I held my breath. Had they heard? No one said 'aha!' or 'what was that?' but the garage had gone completely silent. I heard the clatter of footfalls, the sounds of doors opening and shutting. Damn! They were searching the garage. Why hadn't I just gone home? I'd promised to be careful. Now I was shut up in a garage full of murderers.

Trying to move quietly, I wiggled down, searching desperately for the phone. I touched it, but it skittered away. Another small, damning noise. It gave me another idea for my design business, assuming I got out of here alive. When I finished with Kevlar business clothes and steel-toed pumps, I'd work on a line of rubber phones. I was clearly unsuited for my present career.

Somewhere in the building, a huge blower shuddered and came on with a whoosh, filling the room with its roar. I felt around for the phone As I flipped it open, it rang. One small, three-note ring before I silenced it. Footsteps converged on this end of the garage. Breathless, I hit off, listening as they checked the vehicles again. The empty barrels. The tool cupboards. I squinched into the smallest ball I could, ducking my head so only dark hair, and not white skin, would show if someone glanced in.

"The fuck!" Woodson yelled, kicking at something that flew against the wall beside me, rebounding with a horrific clang. I gagged my startled noise with a sleeve. "There's someone in here. I know there is."

"Maybe they're outside," Chambers suggested.

"Maybe. All right." Clearly, Woodson was in charge of operations. "You two... go out that end door, split up, and each of you take one side of the building."

"I'm not supposed to be seen, remember?" Alasdair said in a mocking voice. "Maybe you should go."

"It's you that keeps forgetting. All right. You stay here. We'll check outside."

Their footsteps moved away. Alasdair stayed nearby, singing a wordless tune to himself as he poked noisily around. I could hear him shuffling through the tools, then his footsteps coming closer. Suddenly, something crashed into the metal near my head with an enormous, reverberating clang. I didn't scream, but I did jump. Then it clanged again and again, flailing against the metal of the plow blade like a clapper against a church bell. All the time, Alasdair was practically shrieking with glee.

By the time he finally stopped, I was wishing Andre
had
made me wear a helmet. My head was ringing and I felt like I'd been pummeled. Just when I had started breathing again, he reached in, grabbed me by the hair and jerked so hard I thought I was being scalped. This time, I did scream.

The hand relaxed. "Come on out of there," he ordered. He sounded way too pleased with himself.

Chapter 30

I crawled out, dirty and shivering, my head still ringing. A few feet away, Alasdair was swinging a shovel back and forth like a pendulum, wearing a maniac grin. "Gotcha!" he said, so blasted proud of himself I wanted to snatch that shovel and whack him upside the head with it. People had told me he was bad, that he was evil, that he was a spoiled rotten bastard who got away with everything. What they hadn't said was that he was a monster. Right now, that big grin told me the monster was sure his luck would hold and he'd get away with murder.

"Excuse me, but what the hell's going on here?"

It should have been Woodson and Chambers returning, but it was the slightly dim security guard who'd rescued me on the path last night. What was his name? Donnie.

"Hey, Donnie," I said. "Thea Kozak. You rescued me last night when I got knocked on the head? This is one of the students. He keeps menacing me with that shovel. I think..." I slowed enough to suggest a pause, "he's gone a little crazy."

Most security services were familiar with students gone temporarily wacko. Donnie turned to Alasdair. "Put down the shovel," he said in a calming voice. "We don't want anyone hurt."

Alasdair grinned a loose, loopy, anything-but-normal grin. His pupils were big and his eyes were red. "No way, Jose. I drop this and that bitch is out the door faster than a weasel in heat."

"I hope you can deal with him," I said. "I was looking for Mr. Woodson and found this nutcase instead."

Alasdair lunged at the guard, swinging the shovel wildly. Donnie picked up a bigger shovel with a longer handle, and the two of them began a duel which would have been absurd if I hadn't know what Alasdair was, and who was waiting outside.

As I headed for the door, I grabbed the phone, punching Bushnell's number to call for help.

He answered on the first ring. "It's Thea Kozak," I said. "Listen."

"How ya doin', Mrs. Lemieux?" he said.

"Not good. Don't talk. Listen." I was talking as fast as a car salesman reads the small print. "I'm in the grounds and building facility at the back of the campus. Where Security is. Alasdair MacGregor is here with me, not the least bit dead. Chambers and Woodson are here, too. I need help. Now. They're going to Justin Palmer's..."

"You been drinking or something?" he said. "You want to try that again?"

I never got to try anything. A sudden peripheral motion made me pull back as Alasdair turned from his duel with Donnie and swung at me, knocking the phone right out of my hand. If I hadn't pulled back, I would have taken the blow full in the face. As it was, he tore the skin off my knuckles, almost tore my ear off, and dislodged a patch of scalp. I screamed as a gush of blood cascaded down my neck.

Lithe as a dancer, he skipped across the floor and brought his foot down on the phone. I clapped a hand to my wounded head, pressing hard, as Alasdair turned on Donnie again, flailing madly. He knocked the shovel out of the guard's hand, then lunged forward and drove his own shovel hard into the guard's stomach.

Woodson and Chambers came flying through the door as Alasdair pulled his shovel back and Donnie collapsed on the floor, screaming, both hands clutching his stomach. Alasdair raised the shovel to strike again. Woodson jumped forward and twisted it out of his hands, throwing it far from both of them with a decisive clang.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded.

At the same time, Chambers spotted me, one hand braced against the wall, the other pressed against the flowing blood. "Oh, shit," he said.

While he was looking to Woodson for direction, I planted a bunch of bloody prints on the wall beyond me, in a spot that was dark and shadowed. Maybe they wouldn't notice, and since it didn't look good for me right now—Bushnell was probably sitting on his sofa laughing his ass off instead of flying to my rescue and Woodson and Chambers could hardly let me go, knowing what I knew—I wanted to leave as much evidence of my presence as I could.

"That your Jeep out there?" Woodson said.

"Yes."

He held out his hand. "Give me the keys."

I fumbled, trying to get them out of my pocket without dropping the pepper spray. Hard to do one-handed, but my other hand was busy. The extended hand flicked angrily. "Come on. Hurry it up."

I got them out of my pocket, but then I dropped them. As Woodson bent to scoop them up, he noticed the phone. "What the hell's this? Alasdair... what's with the phone?"

"She was making a call," Alasdair said, "so I hit her, then smashed the phone."

Woodson picked up the phone, pushed a few buttons, then shoved it in his pocket with a look of disgust. "You smashed it, Alasdair? Not a smart move." Woodson looked at me. "You call somebody?"

"I would have if that looney tune hadn't hit me with a shovel."

I felt sick. The sight of blood always makes me queasy. It's worse when it's my own. The hot feel of it running down my neck, the slightly metallic smell, the sticky warmth saturating my clothes. My knees felt like jelly. God. If I got out of here alive, I really was going to reform. But that was a big if. I had to focus on right now, on their moves and interactions. On ways to maximize my chances of survival.

To lower my profile as an adversary, I tried to appear weak and shaken. Woodson might not buy it, he'd seen me under duress before, but he was pretty distracted, managing things, and assumptions about women's vulnerability are the usual default mode. Unless he was an incredible actor, Chambers became a dolt under pressure. Alasdair was the unknown quantity. No one can predict a jittery, hopped up lunatic druggie. All that was certain was that he was entirely at ease with a frightening level of violence and apparently without a conscience.

We were all standing between a pick-up truck and one of those long vans the school used to transport sports teams. I took a couple uncertain steps toward the truck and perched on the inadequate running board. I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth against the pain, and tried to regroup.

At my first move, Woodson had tensed and taken a step toward me, but once I was sitting with my head between my hands, he relaxed and turned to Chambers. "Guess we'll have to take her with us."

"What about her car?"

"Take that, too."

"Leave it there?" Chambers said. "That means we'd have to take three cars." From under my hair, I watched him slide a glance at Alasdair. "I'm not sure he's in any shape to drive."

Alasdair watched the guard writhing on the floor with a look of pleasure that was revolting. No wonder he'd been so persistent in tormenting Shondra. Making people suffer evidently fed some sick need. "I'm fine to drive," he said.

Woodson shook his head. "You and Todd will go in the gray car, Todd driving. Ms. Kozak and I will take her Jeep. We'll have to figure out what to do with it later. For now, I don't want it sitting here... someone might notice. And wonder."

Chambers pointed at the man on the floor. "What do we do about him?"

Woodson looked down at the groaning man on the floor—his own man—and shrugged. "I'll have to think about that," he said. He walked over to the man, bent down, and pressed his fingers against the man's neck. Almost instantly, the body went limp.

"Hey," Alasdair sidled up and poked the guard with his toe, "that was cool. How'd you do that?"

"Shut up," Woodson said. "I'm trying to think."

I didn't know if he'd killed the poor man or merely rendered him unconscious. What I did know was that he'd done it with chilling efficiency. And I'd actually thought he was nice. I was glad I wasn't making the noises my body wanted to make. My torn scalp hurt like crazy and my knuckles were skinned almost down to bone. My ear felt hot and swollen and was so painful I'd checked twice to be sure it hadn't been torn loose.

I assessed my chances of escape. There were no doors near me and I already knew there were no places to hide. I'd have to wait until we got outside. Maybe then I could make a run for it. The woods were close, the lighting was poor. It was only three against one.

I lowered my bloody hand and left a few nice handprints on the truck. Then I got up and shuffled toward Chambers. "Todd, is there a towel around here I could use 'til I can get to the infirmary? Even some paper towels would help."

I waved my hand at him, scattering blood around. Then I grabbed his arm, closed my eyes, and swayed right up against him, getting blood on his sleeve and on his chest. "Sorry... I... God... what is going on here? That crazy student who hit me looks just like Alasdair MacGregor. And what did Mr. Woodson just do to that poor man?" I clung to him fiercely as the floor undulated a few times and then settled down.