The Haunted (Sarah Roberts 12) (13 page)

“Get up from the chair slowly and lie down on the bed on your back. Do it now.”

As much as she wanted to do something, to fight, there was no play here. With one arm bound and a belt around her neck, she was vulnerable to his whim. Without wanting to startle him, Sarah eased up and out of the chair, using her left hand to push up on the armrest as her legs were still weak and unsure.

She leaned into the oversized gurney and rolled onto her back. The strap around her right wrist was attached to the bed by a six-link chain. The chain appeared to have been added as an afterthought. Leaving her legs bent at the knee, feet flat, she set her left wrist in place to be bound, still thinking there was no other play here.

The entire time the belt around her neck remained loose enough to breathe without an issue.

“Well done,” Williams said.

He clipped the strap around her left wrist and secured it. Now both arms were bound to the bed but her legs remained free. He released his grip on the belt around her neck but left it dangling there. She eased up toward the end of the bed so her head dipped off the edge to avoid the uncomfortable digging of the belt in the back of her neck.

“You just helped kill yourself,” Williams said.

He came into view. She frowned at him. “How’s that?” she asked.

He walked to the end of the bed and looked up at her. She closed her knees, feeling naked in nothing but the robe-like hospital wear and panties.

Without another word he jumped up on the end of the bed, ripped her knees apart and shoved her feet off the edge, forcing them down by pushing on her thighs.

She yelped at the sudden movement and pain that shot through her legs as both hands reflexively yanked their binds to the ends of the six-link chains.

He pulled forward and dropped between her legs, pushing down on her groin with his own as he fumbled with the clasp on his jeans.

“We’re going for one more round before I burn you, bitch.”

She shouted at him and bucked her hips but it was no use. She had no leverage with her legs forced off the edge of the bed on each side, her feet almost touching the floor, and her hands secured and useless above her head.

She felt his skin on her inner thighs. Bile rose in her throat and a crazy thought entered her mind that this moment would add to the other horrific memories that haunt her. That’s all this was: another memory to add to the collection.

But that was acquiescence. That was giving up.

And Sarah never gave up.

He was pushing on her panties, trying to rip them from her.

She heard a tearing of material and her mind slipped out.

And into gear. Not fourth gear; overdrive.

She lifted her head and said, “Give it to me, baby.”

He snapped his face toward her and stopped moving, his left arm shoved down between their joined pelvises where he was attempting to gain entry.

And then Sarah made her move.

Chapter 19

Aaron couldn’t take it anymore. The waiting, the inaction, the inability for anyone to do anything without someone else authorizing it. He learned a long time ago when his sister Joanne went missing in Toronto that the police really do have their hands tied. Through Sarah, he was also learning to let it go and not judge them as harshly as he had in the past. It wasn’t their fault. They had a job to do, a system to uphold and accountability to a system. It was almost impossible to remain inside the boundaries without lawyers present behind every turn.

But Aaron didn’t have those constraints. He could do what he wanted, when he wanted. His only accountability was to maintain standards that kept him out of jail. But on nights like this, with his patience thinning, he was finding that more and more difficult.

Since he had ridden in with Kershaw and Parkman, he had no car at the police station and he couldn’t steal one.

Call a cab? No, they’d trace it and follow him.

Ask for a ride back to his car? They’d follow him.

Stealing a police car as Sarah had done in the past wouldn’t work. Unlike Sarah, he’d get arrested, which meant he couldn’t help Sarah when and if she needed him.

Then an idea occurred to him. He excused himself, telling Parkman he was headed to the restroom.

“I’ll be back in ten to fifteen minutes.”

Parkman nodded, but Aaron felt Parkman’s eyes on him the whole way down the police headquarters corridor.

As he walked past the front desk, he snatched a couple of Officer Nick Kershaw’s business cards so he’d have his number when he needed it.

Once outside, Aaron broke into a run.

“Hey!” someone yelled from behind him.

His feet smacked the pavement as he stopped and turned back.

Parkman stood in the doorway, his arms crossed.

“Where’re you headed?” he asked.

“To get Sarah.”

After a moment of silence between them, Parkman unfolded his arms, opened the door to go back inside, then said loud enough for Aaron to hear, “Go get her and good luck.”

Aaron walked backwards until Parkman disappeared inside, then he pivoted and bolted down the street. What he had planned was a long shot, but he had to try. Whether Sarah was in that mental hospital willingly or not, he needed to talk to her to find out what was going on.

If his plan worked, he would be offered access to the Amy Greg Psychiatric Hospital without resistance.

If
his plan worked.

He ran harder.

Chapter 20

Off balance, his arm still plunged between their groins, Williams leaned slightly to Sarah’s left. The pressure that held her right leg off the edge of the bed had decreased.

“I said, give it to me!” Sarah shouted.

Then, before he realized his mistake in leaning off to one side, Sarah bent her right leg, forced the thigh up and shoved her knee toward Williams.

He caught the movement in his peripheral vision and pulled his hand free to block her leg, but it was too late. Her knee came in fast, connected weakly with his shoulder, bounced off, then came in again. One handed, he fumbled for purchase but missed her leg as Sarah pulled it away, aimed higher and shouted as she brought it in again.

This time her knee smacked Williams in the left ear, knocking his head to the side. A grunt of pain escaped his lips as he used his right hand to balance himself on top of her, otherwise he would have fallen off the side.

Not missing a beat, when Williams moved to grab Sarah’s leg with both hands, she brought her left one up and into action. Both legs encircled his waist and she locked her ankles over his lower back.

She ground her teeth, fisted her hands and moaned as she caught him in a scissor hold, her legs tightening with each second. He pounded at her thighs as best he could, but she ignored it. After another intake of breath, she held it and squeezed tighter.

Dr. Williams screamed under the pressure. Not in great physical shape, he had grown flabby around the waist due to glycemic stress. Without any serious muscular resistance from him, Sarah continued to squeeze his abdomen, lifting him up off the table as she flexed her stomach, until he was almost hovering above her.

Then, in a lightning quick move, she unlocked her legs, brought the left one around in front of him before the dazed Williams could respond, wrapped the back of her knee around his neck. With the leg bent around his neck she was able to crane his head to the side at a forty-five degree angle as she squeezed.

He made inhuman sounds, moans and internal cries as she forced his head down, hoping the force would crack something in his neck.

Pushed by the memories that haunted her, driven by what he had been about to do to her, and offered a chance to save future victims, Sarah added a level of fury into the force around Williams’ neck until his head was inverted, dangling by the side of the bed, the rest of his body following.

She slipped her right leg under him to keep him on the bed as his body began to slip too far to her left, but it was too late.

When her leg had wrapped around Williams’ head and pushed him sideways, gravity did the rest and the inevitable happened. Williams’ body, the fight knocked out of him, slipped off the side of her bed and hit the floor. In order to not lose her advantage, or his head, Sarah tightened her leg with every ounce of strength left in it, but the man’s overweight body hit the floor and yanked the head out from her grasp.

And just like that, the fight was over. Williams was on the floor and Sarah was still on the bed, wrists tied, with nothing to defend herself with but her legs. He would be more cautious, more prepared next time he approached her. He would secure her legs so nothing like that would ever happen again.

She had made a mistake by trying to strangle him or break his neck using her leg instead of an arm. Had she kept him in the scissors hold where he couldn’t breathe too well, he would’ve passed out eventually.

But regrets weren’t how she made it out of jams time and time again. Forward thinking and a little help from the other side was how she did it.

Anything, Vivian?

She turned to look for him. Williams was crawling away from her, his head dangling to the side at a weird angle. Maybe she did hurt him. Maybe she snapped something or pulled a muscle. She could only hope.

Then it occurred to her what he was doing.

He was crawling toward the room key and the lighter, which sat beside the gas can.

“How was your childhood?” she asked.

Was there anything she could do to stall him?

Think, Sarah. Dammit!

“Your father beat you?”

She pulled on her cuffs, yanking the chain to the end, and tilted her head back to examine them.

“When you were younger, did you have a boyfriend? Is that why you’re fixated on raping women because you could only get it up when you’re forcing it?”

Instigating him wouldn’t help, but she couldn’t stop him and she wasn’t about to beg him to stop. All she knew how to do was instigate.

“I get it. That’s why you force yourself on women. Because you’re a coward. A fucking coward who couldn’t measure up to his father and never amounted to anything in your mother’s eyes.”

She kicked the bed. There had to be a way out of this.

“You’re wrong,” Williams muttered from the pile of boxes.

He had made it across the floor and was now sitting up against the boxes, gas can in one hand, lighter in the other. The room’s key reflected the single lightbulb five feet from him.

He had made up his mind. A determination flared in his eyes and his forehead shined where fine beads of sweat had emerged.

“I’m not wrong,” she said. “Rape is wrong. You do it because you’re weak. You’re a coward, a rapist and a murderer. You’re an asshole and most of all, you don’t belong here anymore.”

He frowned, as if what she said was some big puzzle. “Belong where?”

“Here, on this plane.”

“We’re not on a plane.” He wiped his face. “We’re in a mental hospital and by the sounds of it, we’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

“Let me assure you, we’re on a plane. The other side is another plane of existence and that’s where you’re headed next.”

“We’re all headed there eventually.”

He began to undo the cap of the gas can.

“You’re going to the other side a hell of a lot faster than the rest of us,” Sarah said, “where you’ll have to answer for what you’ve done down here.”

“Whatever. I’m an atheist. There is no Other Side. When I leave here, I’ll be dust or worm food. Whichever, doesn’t matter to me as I’ll be gone.”

He tossed the cap to the side, turned away from her and started to get up off the floor.

Sarah pulled herself up until her head dangled completely off the end of the bed. Then she planted both feet, lifted her hips, took a deep breath, and pushed off. She curled her legs up toward her head, lifted her lower back off the bed and kept the momentum going forward as the rest of her spine came away from the surface of the bed.

Then her feet were over her head. Next came her knees, and finally, crumpled up, her weight drove her the rest of the way over. Her backwards somersault brought her all the way off the bed, her feet landing flat on the cool floor at the head of her bed. During the flip, her wrists spun the six-link chain in a small circle, twisting it some, but not enough to cause a problem.

Williams was on his feet, his back to her, his neck still craned to the side. He tilted the gas can and let its contents spill from the opening. It splashed on the boxes, the thick scent reaching Sarah’s nose immediately, making her want to cough.

She gripped the edge of the bed and tried to push as it was on wheels, but it didn’t move. The brakes were easy to flip up and off on the two wheels on her side of the bed, but she couldn’t reach the other two.