You Can't Escape (27 page)

No.

“Yes,” he growled.

He just hoped Boo would stay inside. If he came out to the graveyard again, he was going to get thrashed. There was no other way to teach him.

He drove a long way, taking the back road that led into the hills, but she stayed right behind him.
She’s not the reporter
, he reminded himself.
You need to get rid of Jordanna, the reporter.

But first . . .

He turned onto the grassy track that led to the graveyard, afraid she might balk at the last moment, but no, she kept on coming. Her car was going to be a problem, but he could get rid of it. It was dense woods around the graveyard, and he could hide the car till dark and then just drive it off the cliff, like when he’d chased after Emily.

A half mile in, he came to a stop, popping open the glove box. He pulled out the bottle with the eyedropper, sucking up just enough liquid to do the trick. Palming the eyedropper, he climbed out of the truck and waited as she slowed to a stop. When she didn’t get out of the car, he walked her way.

She rolled down the window. “This can’t be your place,” she said, frowning. “This is the back side of—”

“This is where I came with Emily,” he cut her off.

“In high school?” Her tone said she was having serious second thoughts.

“Your house is just down thataway.” He hooked a thumb to his right.

“I thought so. But where’s your house? This can’t be right.” Her eyes swiveled that direction, and quick as a snake he snatched a hank of her hair and slammed her face into the steering wheel. She grunted, blood gushed from her nose and she started gasping and thrashing. Quickly he shoved the eyedropper to the back of her throat and thrust the plunger. She choked and shrieked, and he covered her mouth with his bare hand.

“Shut the fuck up, whore,” he cooed softly to her, yanking open the door and dragging her from the car. She started howling as soon as he released her mouth, and he dragged her toward the graveyard, her heels digging into the ground.

But she was no match for him and he flung her down beside the mound that was Bernadette Fread. Immediately he threw himself on her, loving the way she squirmed and squealed beneath him, her movements making him groan with desire, his body pushing against hers until finally she grew quiet.

It took everything he had to keep from sliding into her warmth, feeling her close around him. But if he succumbed, it would be that much longer before he could ascend himself.

Pulling himself together, he stepped back from her. He couldn’t leave her here just yet. There was work to be done to salvage what was left of her soul. He bent down and picked her up, hauling her over his shoulder. At his truck, he stowed her into the cab, stuffing her into the footwell as much as possible. He took a blanket from behind the seat and covered her up so she looked like an indiscriminate mound, then he climbed behind the wheel and backed around her car, mashing down grasses, and aimed back for the farm. At the barn he would give her a lethal dose and watch her slip away. Then he would sear her flesh and burn out the devil who was hiding beneath her skin.

Chapter Sixteen

Jordanna went inside the pharmacy again and ordered another two burgers from the grill counter. She looked over the menu but couldn’t see anything she would rather have. Besides, she’d told him she was getting burgers, and by God that’s what she was going to do.

It took ten minutes and she waited impatiently, not wanting to think about her conversation with Dance about her father, unable to think of anything else. As she walked away from the counter, bag in hand, she half expected to run into someone else she knew, but the only people she saw were strangers. The scent from the burgers made her mouth water.

Climbing back into the RAV, she plunked the bag into Dance’s hands and said, “I’ve got the general idea where the body was found. All the properties off Summit Ridge are part of the old Homestead Act, three hundred and twenty acres, so there aren’t that many doors to knock on to find the kid with the ATV.”

“Big properties.”

She nodded. “The housing tracts near town were put up in the forties, fifties, and sixties, but they’re all to the north. The homesteads are south, and then Summit Ridge runs along the back side of about four farms, ours being one of them, and curves up to the falls before heading into the mountains.”

“Small town with a lot of land around it,” he observed. He lifted the bag. “Thanks for this.”

“It was your money,” she reminded him. They drove toward the homestead for a few miles, then she said, “About my father, you’re right. I should talk to him. Maybe after Kara gets here, I’ll give it a try.”

He nodded noncommittally. Having said his piece, he apparently was letting her decide. Or maybe he realized he’d said enough to sway her and anything more might piss her off.

That thought made her smile, but then the smile faded.
Do you really remember what you saw that night with Emily? Or, is what you’re recalling, what you believe you saw . . . maybe something you turned into fact, whether it is or not?

Jordanna thought back to that moment when she’d walked in her parents’ bedroom, trying to recall every detail of the scene she’d spent so many years trying to forget. What was foremost in her mind was Emily atop her father and the rifle in her own hand. She remembered lifting the gun as Emily looked back and started screaming, and her father sat up straight the millisecond before she fired.

He was damn lucky she was such a terrible shot or she might have killed him.

September yanked up weeds by the fistful in Jake’s backyard. She’d moved into his one-level rambler with him the previous fall, and though he called it their place, she still thought of it very much as his. Sinking back onto her sneakers, she squatted for a moment, reviewing her handiwork. But instead of dandelions and crabgrass, her vision was filled with pictures of Jay Danziger and Jordanna Winters at the hospital, followed by the image of Carmen Danziger’s set face, and finally a completely fabricated scenario of the elderly Phillip and Jan Singleton, glaring across a table from each other, their food poisoned, each hating the other one. She imagined the Singletons, married for more years than either had found they wanted, their discontentment nurturing a dark, deadly seed that had finally burst open into out-and-out hate. She’d didn’t believe for one minute that the Singletons had made a suicide pact, the way Fairy and Craig had suggested. In her experience, it was much more likely one of them killed the other first, then killed her or himself.

Marriage . . .
She shook her head, kind of surprised at her own dark thoughts.

She’d taken off her ring to do the yard work and now she looked at her bare finger. Why was she having such a hard time? It wasn’t like her to mull over things too long. The whole thing was making her half-crazy.

Jake appeared on the back porch. “It’s gonna rain again,” he warned. “Come in and have a glass of wine.”

“It isn’t five o’clock yet,” she said, but she stood up and picked up the gloves she’d stripped off.

“My family’s in the wine business. There are no rules.” He was amused, his smile lazy.

For a moment, she just looked at him, her heart swelling with emotion. “You know that I love you, right?”

“Yeeesss . . .” he said cautiously.

“We’re engaged, and I want to marry you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you want to marry me. That’s what we’re doing.”

“Where are we going with this?” he asked, gazing at her hard.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, then rushed out, “I’m just having a helluva time with the ring!”

“The ring?” He glanced down at her hand and saw it wasn’t on her finger.

“Don’t ask me why. It’s nuts. I’m nuts. The ring’s beautiful. That’s not it. I don’t want a different one. But when people remark on it, I just want to rip it off and hide it. I’m probably the only woman in the galaxy that feels this way, but it seems like . . . I’m trying to prove something.”

They stared at each other a moment; then Jake started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” she demanded.

“Not a damn thing. You don’t want to wear the ring, don’t wear it. I don’t care, if that’s all it is, and if it’s something more, spit it out.”

“No, that’s it. I just feel like I’m flaunting it, or something. I know it’s what everybody does, but it’s not me.”

“You still want to get married.”

“Yes.” She heard the note of uncertainty in her voice and cleared her throat. “Yes.”

Jake’s gaze narrowed. “You’re lying.”

“I want to get married,” she said positively, walking up to him and slipping her arms around his waist. “I just don’t want it to be the first thing somebody sees about me. The ring’s like this invitation to talk wedding. And I don’t like perps staring at it, either. I don’t want them to know anything about me.”

He pulled her close and dropped his chin to the top of her head. “Don’t wear the ring, then.”

“I want to be clear on this. I love you, and I want to marry you, and I kind of want it just to be between us . . . for a while. I don’t want the spotlight on me. It drives me crazy every time Pauline Kirby wants to put me on television. She’s been chasing me down about this Saldano bombing, even though I’m not anywhere on that case anymore. I just want to be anonymous. If that’s a flaw in my character, so be it.”

“I kind of like your flaws, among other things,” he said, a smile in his voice.

She pulled back and looked up at him. “You’re not upset.”

“I don’t give a damn about the ring. I just want to make sure that’s all we’re talking about.”

“That’s all we’re talking about,” she assured him, pulling his head down to kiss him. He gathered her close and they stumbled back into the house together. September started chuckling and Jake half carried her over to the couch, where they both sank down, still embracing.

She was lying on his chest and she leaned down and pressed her nose to his. “How about we skip the wine and go straight for dessert?”

“What kind of dessert would that be?”

She slipped her hands down his chest and around to the strong curve of his back. “Pineapple upside-down cake?”

He grinned. “Not sure what that means, but I’m all for it.”

And then they were both laughing.

Jordanna expected Kara to be waiting for her at the homestead when they got there, but she was nowhere to be seen. “I thought Kara was stopping by here first,” she mused, while she put their burgers on paper plates. Then she picked up her phone and placed a call to Kara’s cell. After four rings, she was sent to voice mail, so she clicked off. “Maybe she went to my father’s, first.”

An hour and a half later, she phoned Kara again. This time the call went directly to voice mail. She was sitting on the couch beside Dance, and she tossed the phone on the bench she’d pulled over to use as a table again. They’d eaten their meal and had desultorily talked over the case. She knew he thought she should call her father and now, feeling frustrated, she gave in and grabbed up the cell phone again, scrolling to Jennie’s number. After two rings, her stepmother answered in surprise, “Jordanna?”

“Hi, Jennie. I’m calling because I’m looking for Kara.”

“She’s not here yet, but I’ve got a place set for you, too, and your friend. Please come by. Your father’s looking so forward to it!”

“Okay . . . well . . . I need to talk to Kara. If she shows up, will you have her call me?”

“Okay.” She sounded a bit crestfallen, but Jordanna was trying to tamp down a low-grade worry.

“I think I’m going to have to skip dinner,” Jordanna said, “but I’ll call you again. And I want to talk to Dad, too.”

“Oh? Good.” Jennie instantly perked up.

“We’ll talk later,” Jordanna said hurriedly, hanging up. She didn’t want Jennie thinking it was going to be any hug fest between them.

Dance asked, “Is it like Kara to go dark like this? Turn off her phone?”

“I don’t know. I only see her occasionally. It’s surprising we’re all in Rock Springs at the same time.”

Jordanna managed to wait around for another hour, walking the rooms like a caged lion, while Dance sat on the couch, his eyes closed in thought. Finally, Jordanna said, “I want to go find the kid on the ATV.”

He said, “I may need a pain pill.”

She quickly got him a pill and a glass of water. “You should have been taking these.”

He nodded slowly. “I’d like to go with you.”

“Stay here. I won’t be long.”

She put another text through to Kara, her third, and wished she’d paid more attention to what Kara had said on the phone. And had she really seen the guy she thought was Emily’s boyfriend? Why did that chase chills along her spine?

Ten minutes later, she was in her RAV and heading south and then east toward the base of the mountains.

Todd Douglas liked to hike, and he preferred the rocky tors in the lower Cascades above and around Fool’s Falls to the flattened foothills near his hometown of Malone. He’d chosen a Saturday hike, had packed his backpack with a cheese and roast beef sandwich and a water bottle, a first aid kit, a flashlight, and his cell phone. A half-day hike, he’d told himself, and had done just that, starting about 11
AM
and ending up above the falls about four. He’d thought about God a lot during his trek. He was religious in a way that his cousin, Rusty, poked fun at, though he struggled with the super-duper religious nuts, the kind that tended toward Green Pastures Church, which he suspected wasn’t even enough for the truly fanatical. No, Todd’s idea of heaven was nature. In his mind, what lay beyond the Pearly Gates was clear mountain streams, sheer granite cliffs, and verdant foliage gilded by sunlight and refreshed with silvery rain. He would never admit to such thoughts, as Rusty would think there was something seriously wrong with him. If you weren’t a carousing, drinking cowboy type with thoughts of screwing women, wrestling livestock, raising crops, and toting firearms, Rusty wasn’t completely sure you were a man.