Unseen (24 page)

Will had put off following up on the partial license plate for the vehicle that had run Spencer Bereth’s van off the road. He could chase down the possibles on Saturday. Today, tonight, he wanted to spend with Gemma.

They took his Jeep to the quarry, approaching on a pothole-riddled access road that led up to the ridge. When they reached Lover’s Lane, Will let the Jeep idle, its headlights cutting through the empty darkness above the quarry, twin beams that only emphasized the fact that the space below held no definition from this height.

There were two other vehicles parked on the headland. Both were dark and seemed abandoned. Will and Gemma climbed from the Jeep and Will swept his light over the nearest one. A head popped up, eyes blinking in annoyance.

“You’re not going to bust them, are you?” Gemma asked.

“Hell, no,” Will said. “I’m not that much of a pig. And I’m off-duty.”

“Sort of,” Gemma said, her gaze sweeping over the quarry. A faint drift of fog hung close to the ground far below. “Tim doesn’t appear to be here.”

Will’s flashlight ran over the other vehicle but no affronted heads appeared. “Any kind of trail down?”

“Used to be,” Gemma said. “There’s a road closer to my house, over that way.” She gestured to the southeast.

Will next swept the beam of his light over the ground. There were lots of muddy ruts from would-be lovers’ tires and the faint outline of a rocky track through the underbrush. The engine of the car nearest to them fired, and it backed out with mud splattering everywhere, hitting Will’s pant legs as it peeled away. “Maybe I was too nice to them,” he muttered and Gemma chuckled softly.

It was all he could do to keep from pulling her close again and engaging in some minor lovemaking.

“C’mon,” he said, and they held hands and started down the trail.

The wolf had bided his time. It had taken every scrap of self-control he possessed not to drag the witch-whore from the green Camaro by her hair before her boy could fuck her. He needed the commotion to die down, to have them to himself. His nerves were stretched raw and he felt like it was never going to happen but suddenly it was just him and the Camaro’s steamed-up windows.

They’d locked the car, so the wolf had to be strong and fast. He carried his heaviest wrench, rounded the vehicle to the driver’s side, which was pressed against an overgrown laurel, and smashed in the rear driver’s-side window. The whore-witch shrieked and grabbed for her top but Wolf saw the bouncing globes of her breasts. The boy beneath her was struggling for breath. Wolf knew he was still inside her. He took the wrench and smacked him near his ear. He stopped moving instantly.

“Stop! Stop!” the whore was screaming. “You killed him. Oh, God! You killed him!”

She was crying, screeching, scrabbling for the door, trying to escape, trying to get out the passenger side. He let her and when she tumbled out, buck-ass naked except for the tiny shirt she was holding to her chest like a shield, he grabbed her by her hair. She wheeled and shrieked like a banshee. Wolf slapped her hard and she fell down. He wanted to take her right there. In the mud. Where she deserved to lie. He jumped on her and wrapped his hands around her neck, strangling. Her fingers clawed at his and she gasped for air. Her body thumped and thrashed beneath him, stirring his need.

“Witch,” he ground out.

Her eyes bugged. She recognized him but couldn’t speak.

And then the sound of an approaching car.

Wolf jumped to his feet, dragging her with him. He slammed shut the open door of the Camaro and then pulled his still struggling victim to the undergrowth. She was making sounds so he was forced to press her windpipe harder until all that was left was a last soft
whoosh
from her emptying lungs.

The couple in the newly arrived car got right at it. The wolf could see their shadows and silhouettes from the interior lights they didn’t immediately turn off. His lips pulled back in a sneer. But the woman wasn’t wearing a disguise. She didn’t try to hide her identity. She was not a witch.

He watched for several moments, then he pulled her further, deeper, away from the cars and the quarry, which was where he would dearly have loved to take her. That should be her final resting ground. Her and the One.

Alone with the whore-witch, deep in a copse of trees and high, overgrown bushes, he pulled the cigarettes from his pocket. He couldn’t have her. She was already dead. But he could burn her.

Carefully, he lit a match, touching the flame to the end of the cigarette, puffing just enough to make certain it was lit. He’d been so careful with the other two. He’d been so needful, marking his conquests. Labeling them. Marking them with their numbers. But now that was over. His hand shook a little as he seared the burning tip into her flesh. Once. Twice. Three times. Then a frenzy of burning.

Burn. Burn. Burn, whore!

The scent of searing human flesh woke him to the moment. They would smell her.

Suddenly afraid, he extinguished the cigarette and slung her limp form over his shoulders, stealing through the woods, oblivious to slapping wet branches and sharp limbs that drew harsh lines on the skin of his face.

He worked his way back to his brother’s truck, breathing hard, sweating, his sweat mixing with a lightly falling rain. Opening the GemTop, he threw her in the back. She was a tangle of legs, arms, hair, and breasts. For a moment he wanted to lick those breasts but she was dead. He would have to wait for the one he sought.

He would make sure he had time with her.

She was the witch who’d taken his brother from him.

He would drive into her till she screamed on her way back to hell.

Turning the ignition, he put the truck in gear and rumbled away from the quarry.

But he would be back.

Gemma slipped down the rocky trail to the base of the quarry. It was damper at the bottom. The air was thick with pent-up rain. The fog lay damp and soggy against her face and turned her hair to limp strands.

She shivered and looked over her shoulder, feeling a sudden malevolence she couldn’t understand but that felt decidedly real.

Will was ahead of her. She reached for his sleeve, afraid to get too far from his warmth and security. They worked their way to the bottom, then Will picked his way, with Gemma at his left shoulder, through the broken rocks and scraggly plants along the quarry’s ravine.

“Tim!” Gemma called. She’d been calling his name sporadically on the way down. “Tim! It’s Gemma.”

There was no answer. Just a soft soughing of the wind, high above. Will twisted around and looked up but the fog obscured his Jeep and the abandoned vehicle at the crest of the ridge. “Tim!” he called out.

They both waited. “What do you think?” Gemma asked at length as they traversed the quarry. She looked east toward her own property, and north to the Dunleavys. The gray fog deadened everything.

“Why does he come to the quarry?” Will asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe it’s more about Lover’s Lane,” he theorized. “That’s where he wanted to take you.”

“Maybe he’s still up on the ridge,” Gemma agreed. Then a moment later, “Maybe he watches the lovers who come here?”

Will grunted. “He’s a Peeping Tom?”

“He doesn’t really understand what’s okay behavior and what isn’t.”

They called Tim’s name several more times, then slowly hiked back up to the top. Another car had appeared but when Gemma and Will showed up in their headlights they shouted some obscenities and reversed out in a hurry.

There was no sign of Tim.

Will shone his flashlight on the abandoned car. Again nothing moved. He stepped closer and noticed the seat belt was hanging outside the closed passenger door. The windows were fogged.

Something felt off so Will moved closer. It looked like the rear driver’s-side window had been smashed in. With the end of his flashlight, he knocked against the passenger door window pane. Then he tried the handle. It opened easily.

And an arm and head flopped down, hanging outside.

Gemma screamed, then cut herself off abruptly, a hand at her throat.

Will bent down to the man. “He’s alive,” he said.

Quickly he called 911 while Gemma just stared. He seemed familiar. “I think he’s been to the diner,” she said in an unsteady voice.

“Can you help me lay him down?”

They carefully pulled the man’s body from the car, supporting his neck, keeping his back as straight as possible. Will’s flashlight revealed the blow to his temple where a stream of blood from a gash ran down his neck.

And then they heard the whimpering. Will whipped around, his beam catching Little Tim in its illumination. His face was contorted. He had a girlie magazine folded in one tight fist. “He burned her,” he said. “I could smell it. I thought he wanted to love her, but he burned her.”

“Who?” Will demanded. “Where?”

Tim ran to Gemma and nearly knocked her over. He was sobbing and shaking. He pointed with the magazine in the direction of the woods. “But he’s gone now. He took her.” He looked up and saw the unconscious form of the man on the ground. “Is he dead?” he wailed.

“No,” Gemma said. “No, he’s alive.”

“He took her!” he cried again. “Burned her and took her. It smelled so bad!”

“You saw him?” Will asked.

Tim nodded. He waved in the general direction they’d come on the access road. “He took her away.”

“Who?” Will asked again.

Little Tim looked at him fearfully from the comfort of Gemma’s embrace. “The cigarette man.”

“The cigarette man?” Will repeated, a cold finger drawing a line down his spine.

“I saw the cigarette tip,” he said, pointing toward a grouping of trees. “It was orange. And then I smelled it. And then he carried her away.”

Will met Gemma’s eyes. “I need to wait for the paramedics.”

“We’re okay,” she said. “Right, Tim? We’re okay for now.”

He sniffed and gathered her closer. “We’re at Lover’s Lane,” he said shyly.

“Yes, we are.”

It seemed like forever before they heard the sirens. Will checked the Camaro’s registration then got on his cell phone to his partner. As the ambulance arrived, lights flashing, Tim finally let go of Gemma to observe, his eyes wide. The EMTs jumped out and Gemma pulled Tim back to give them room. They worked over the unconscious man and loaded him into the back of the van.

Will said, “I’m going to take you and Tim home and then head to the hospital.”

“You think the guy who did this is the…?”

“Yeah.” Will was terse.

“What guy?” Tim asked.

“Not a nice one,” Gemma answered.

“No.” Tim shook his head dolefully, then cast a worried glance in the direction of the copse of trees.

Fifteen minutes later they were on their way, following the ambulance from the site. Will said quietly, “We’re going to search the area, but Tim, did you see the vehicle that left? The one the cigarette man was driving?”

“Noooooo. I heard it leave.”

“Taillights? The back, red lights? Did you see them?”

“Noooooo.” He gazed at Will with worried eyes.

“It’s all right,” he told him.

They drove to the Weatherford home. Vera had the lights on, and she hugged her big son when he lumbered up the front porch steps and into her waiting arms. “He was a mean man,” Tim said when Gemma and Will turned to leave. Then, a little desperately, “I see into your soul, Gemma!”

“It’s okay, Tim,” Gemma assured him.

They climbed into the Jeep and drove back to her farmhouse. “Are you going to come back after?” she asked him as he dropped her off.

He wanted to more than anything, but he knew how things were shaping up. “I doubt I’ll be able to. If this guy’s our psycho, the shit’s really going to hit the fan.”

“Whose car was it? Can you tell me?”

“It’s registered to Barry Halberton.”

Gemma shook her head. “He seemed familiar but I don’t know…”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Will promised, then lifted a hand and turned the Jeep around as Gemma let herself into her house. She’d left more Snickers bars in a bowl outside the door but they looked untouched. Charlotte had been her only trick-or-treater.

Nevertheless, she moved cautiously through the house, testing every window and door. She felt almost violated; the events of the night filled her head with emotions she didn’t want to examine.

She checked her phone messages and heard Tremaine Rainfield ask her to call him. He said that though the next day was Saturday, he would really like to see her again.

Gemma thought about her ability to read emotions as she walked into her red room. She suddenly wanted to know more about herself. If Tremaine could help…? Before she could change her mind, she called his number and left a message saying she would be happy to meet with him the next morning. The walls were pressing in and she needed tools to keep them from crushing her.

Barry Halberton woke up in Laurelton General’s ER. His head throbbed and his vision was slightly blurry. He was undressed under a sheet and suddenly he remembered taking his pants off and having Heather on top of him.

“Heather!” he called, shooting to a sitting position. Immediately a team of nurses gently pushed him back down. One of them, a young, pretty one, said, “Sir, you need to lie down. You’ve been in an accident.”

“An accident?”

And then the serious-eyed face of a man in a black jacket and jeans gazed down at him. “Are you Barry Halberton?”

“Yeah. Where’s Heather?”

“What’s Heather’s last name?”

“Uh…Yates…Is she okay?” he asked, panicked. Then, “Oh, my God! He broke into our car. Smashed the window! Where’s Heather! I need to see her.”

“Mr. Halberton, stay down,” the nurse ordered, her hands on his arms.

“Heather’s missing,” the man said. “We’re trying to find her.”

“What?” Barry was beside himself. “He took her. He’s going to kill her.”

“Can you tell us what he looked like?” the man asked calmly.

Barry moaned and closed his eyes. He saw the looming head come toward them in the front seat. “Like an ape. Big head and shoulders. Oh, God…” He leaned over the gurney and vomited.