Hide My Thoughts: A Romantic Suspense Thriller Book (Hide Me Series 2) (12 page)

West ran to the very end of the parking lot, searching down the street for Blaise’s red Mustang. Ten minutes had come and gone and he couldn’t sit still any longer. Still no answer from Jordan, and he’d sent Katerina text after text and tried calling her phone, but it went straight to voice mail. Her phone was turned off.

If only he knew for certain which direction Blaise would be coming from! He would start off that way on foot. His phone rang in his hand and he whipped it in front of his face, hoping against hope that it was Katerina. A number he’d never seen before. He answered.

“What?”

“Hey, dude, uh, I’m just doin what the pants told me to, yeah?”

West stared at the phone in his hand, disbelief written on his face. Some Keanu Reeves wanna-be was calling him now? He poised his finger over the end call button and almost pressed it, but at the last minute something stopped him.

“
What?
”

“You know, the pants, they had your number written on them in lipstick?”

West’s entire body went cold in an instant. His heart seemed to stop in his chest. “What else was written on them?”

“Dude, uh, it says
Please call. Life and death.
Then your number. Then it says
Dylan is Sheriff Payne
. You know, Payne with a Y, not pain like ouchy.”

West heard the man stutter a laugh in his ear but it meant nothing to him. His mind spun in overdrive. Payne. Sheriff Payne. He always knew there was something wrong with Payne. But this was worse than he ever could have imagined in a million years.

“Where are you?” West forced out.

“Uh, Shell station on 4th St.”

“Stay there. I’ll be right there.”

“Dude, I gotta get to work.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes. I’ll give you $100 if you are there when I get there.”

“Dude! You got it.”

West hung up and pulled up Blaise’s phone number, even as he started running towards 4th street. Before the phone began to ring in his hand, Blaise pulled up behind him. West sprinted for him.

“He’s got her. Dylan Phillips has got Katerina!”

***

The man with the pants hadn’t seen anything but the clothes laying on the ground. His chosen name was Kai, and most of the time, he hung out with several homeless friends at the beach, surfing whenever he could. He was barely keeping a roof over his head himself, though and he wasn’t about to turn down free clothes. If they wouldn’t fit him, they would fit someone he knew. He had grabbed the pile of clothes and held them up, trying to get a feel for size. He found the message and called West and that was all he knew. West sent him on his way with his hundred dollars and he was thrilled. West got the feeling that he would be calling in sick to work that day.

Blaise and West combed Katerina’s car looking for anything that might tell them what exactly what happened this morning. Blaise found Katerina’s phone on the concrete, completely broken and useless.

“Something must have convinced her to leave the apartment without telling me this morning. He must’ve threatened her with something somehow,” West said, his fear and frustration mounting to new levels.

“Or maybe threatened you.”

“What?”

“Maybe he convinced her he could get to you in some way that made her think she had no choice but to go to him. She could have sacrificed herself to keep you safe.”

West considered it. He hated the idea but he could see how it could be true. “We have to
find
him.”

Blaise studied the roof line of the gas station. “Look, there’s a security camera, let’s go tell them we need to watch the video.”

West grabbed his arm as he turned to go to the station. “We already know it’s Sheriff Payne. How is the video going to help us? We need to find him and we need to do it right now. He’s got Katerina! Can’t you find out where he lives?”

Blaise looked at him levelly. “Do you really think he took her to his house?”

West pounded a fist on the trunk of Katerina’s car, denting it. “Yeah! Maybe! I don’t know! We have to try, don’t we?”

“We do have to try. But we have to be smart about this.” He lifted his chin towards the gas station. “I’m telling you, the smartest thing to do right now is ask for the security tape, plus I’ll make some phone calls and get Payne’s address. Maybe I can get a team sent out there.”

This time West let Blaise go into the gas station. He followed him, all the while praying they could find Katerina quickly. Who knew what that sicko was doing to her.

Fifteen minutes later, Blaise, having wisely gone over Detective Gagne’s head, had convinced Assistant Chief Foley to send a team out to Payne’s house. He hung up his phone and nodded to the manager of the gas station, who pressed play on the video recording equipment in front of him. He fast forwarded through most of the morning video, until West jumped up. “Stop! That’s Katerina’s car.”

They watched as Katerina looked at her phone, then got into the car next to her, looked at her phone again, then took her shirt off and dropped it outside the car window. West ground his teeth together hard enough to send a bolt of pain through his head.

“He’s instructing her somehow. He’s sending her texts,” Blaise said.

The entire scene took only a few minutes, and then they watched as she drove to the exit and waited.

A rusty old farm truck pulled into the scene and stopped. Sheriff Payne got out and picked up Katerina’s phone.

“Bastard!” West yelled. “He’s sending me the text there.”

They all watched as both cars pulled out of the parking lot. Blaise took down the license plate on the farm truck and called it into dispatch. He hung up, a grim look on his face. “The plate is stolen. It comes back to a red Honda Civic.”

“So what does that mean?” West demanded.

“Nothing. We know who’s driving it. I’ll put out an APB on the truck with the stolen plate, Plus that little car Katerina was driving, and we’ll have every officer in the area watching for him.”

West collapsed into a chair and rubbed his eyes. “You know they're not driving around, Blaise. They are holed up somewhere. He’s got her, and he’s doing whatever he’s doing to her. She might already be dead,” he said, his voice losing strength on the last word.

“Don’t give up West. Katerina outsmarted him once. She can do it again. Look what she did to Frank Phillips.”

West shook his head. “This guy knows that too. He won’t touch her. He won’t give her a chance. That’s why he didn’t make her get into his vehicle.”

Blaise looked off in the distance and was silent for several moments. West watched him, but didn’t say anything. He knew his friend was a good cop, and he knew his friend knew more than anybody else about this case right now. He didn’t want to distract whatever thinking processes were going on in Blaise’s head.

“Okay look, we’ve got a team headed out to Sheriff Payne’s house right now. I think you’re right. I think he’s holed up somewhere with Katerina. We just have to find him. That old farm truck has me thinking. There were two farms in the Phillips family. The one that belonged to their father, and the one that belonged to their uncle. I’ve personally been out at the one that belonged to their father. I went over it with a fine tooth comb, looking for some sign that any of these women had been out there. There’s nothing there. I even brought a crew out and dug in the basement just like we did at Frank’s house in Westwood Harbor. But there’s another farm, and no one has been out there. It was sold fifteen years ago to a business called Creation Industries. No one has been able to get ahold of the owner and so a judge hasn’t given us the right to search it yet. I’m thinking he’s out at one of these farms. And if I had to guess, I would say it’s the one we haven’t searched yet. I say we go check it out. Just me and you. It’s in Tetam County, so I don’t want to ask the Sheriff’s office out there to do it. Who knows how they will respond to having to arrest their boss if he's there. Plus I doubt we could make them understand just how dangerous he is.”

West shot out of his chair. “How fast can we get there?”

Dylan stepped across the floor, past Katerina, needle and key in hand. Katerina closed her eyes, thinking
this can’t be happening
.
Oh Jordan, I’m so sorry
.

A stream of images streaked into her mind that didn’t come from her. They came and went so fast that she couldn’t decipher even one. She twisted in her chair, her eyes flying open. Dylan hadn’t touched her. He hadn’t even gotten within two feet of her, so how had they made contact?

He arrived at Jordan’s cell. “Stick your arm out through the slot!” he ordered.

“Fuck yourself up the ass and die of strangulation!” Jordan screamed back at him. 

He kicked the cell door once, but not very hard. His shoes were old, ratty tennis shoes with small holes starting at the seams. Katerina stared at his shoes. His wet shoes, with holes in them. She looked down at the floor to where her feet were resting on the concrete. The wet concrete. Half of her left foot sat in a puddle barely a quarter of an inch deep. The puddle was long, crossing almost half the room. Dylan had walked through it to get to the other side of the room.

Could she use it?

But once he pulled Jordan out of the cell, he would be touching her. Did she dare try anything with Jordan in danger too?

Did she dare not to?

Katerina tried to remember exactly what she had done to Frank Phillips. She had opened herself wide. She had pulled … no sucked the very essence of his being out through the conduit she made by touching him. She grimaced and prepared herself to do it again. To try anyway. And to die trying if that was what was required.

Dylan commanded Jordan again. This time he used his cop voice, and Katerina hated him for it. She watched him, her eyes narrowed, waiting to make her move, terrified she would mess it up. She pushed aside the fear again and fed her anger, whipping herself into an enraged frenzy. Her breath tore out of her lungs, her hands gripped the arms of the chair hard enough to snap the wood, her teeth pressed together hard enough to crack them in half.

“Have it your way. You’ll be begging me to let you put your hand out the slot after a gunshot to the knee,” Dylan spit out, turning.

Katerina’s anger surged horribly. She felt it spilling out of her body, a red heat that burned without consuming. She heard electrical snapping and popping sounds in her hair, and shook her head, thinking it was on fire, but not quite able to care.

Dylan was coming back her way. Katerina tried to prepare herself. She watched his feet closely, waiting for the moment when he stepped in the puddle.

On the downward arc of his foot into the puddle Katerina tried to open herself, tried to initiate the pulling, but as the foot slapped into the water, already lifting and on its way out, she realized she couldn’t do it. Her fierce anger was blocking her.

His foot lifted out of the puddle and Katerina screamed. Her primal scream of rage filled the small room and the edges of her world went black.

West pounded his leg in frustration. The address of the farm they were looking for was #4 Gresham Lane, but they couldn’t find Gresham Lane. No GPS system worked out here in the deep-country farmland, and half of the street signs either never existed or were knocked down or stolen. They’d driven as fast as they could down the old dirt roads, making the trip from Westwood Harbor into the heart of Tetam County in twenty-five minutes, but now he could feel precious time slipping through their fingertips as they drove around in circles.

Blaise called Tetam County dispatch and said he was looking for his cousin’s house because he hadn’t answered the phone in a few days. He didn’t dare say he was a police officer looking for Sheriff Payne, not knowing if anyone in dispatch would tip off Sheriff Payne. What they were doing was dangerous enough. The dispatcher had given them general directions to where Gresham lane was, but warned them that there was no mail delivery to the street and there was a good chance nobody put their addresses out on display.

“So how do you know how to get to a house if they call and ask for help?” Blaise had asked.

“Oh, we always get directions,” the dispatcher had said. “What’s the address you are looking for? Maybe I know where it is.”

Blaise had weighed his answer carefully. Should he tell her? Finally he decided to take the safe route. “#3 Gresham Lane,” he said.

“There’s only four or five houses on Gresham Lane. I don’t know which one would be #3, but I know it’s not the very last one. The very last house on the left has been vacant for years.”

Blaise’s eyes lit up. “Okay thanks, that helps.” He hung up the phone. “Jackpot!”

They followed the dispatcher's directions and found a lonely, red dirt road that looked like all the rest.

Blaise drove as quickly as he could down the bumpy road. Farmland stretched for miles, and occasionally a house dotted the distant countryside, but he couldn’t see any houses on this lane from the road. A few turn offs that could have been driveways but looked more like trails pulled off to the left and right. Finally, the road ended, but a smaller, dirtier, dustier lane headed left.

“Cross your fingers,” he told West and swung left.

West sat on his hands, staring nervously out the front window. This had to be it - had to!

The driveway was a mess of potholes and Blaise had to go super slowly. When he finally reached the end, the ramshackle house and big red barn burst into view.

“This is it! It looks just like Katerina said it would: old-as-dirt house, huge red barn, dead grass.” West reached down and grasped the shotgun Blaise had given him, checking again that he knew where the safety was and could flick it off in an instant.

“Listen to me West, I go in first, and you do what I tell you, no matter what.”

“Okay,” West said, opening his door.

Blaise reached out and grabbed him. “No West, you don’t understand. There’s a good chance I’m going to lose my job for this, but if you do something stupid and get yourself hurt, I am guaranteed to lose my job and I may be prosecuted for my decisions.”

West looked him in the eyes. “Okay Blaise. You have my word.”

Blaise opened his door. “Good. Stay behind me.”

West and Blaise got out of the car and approached the house warily and quickly. The front door was standing open. Blaise held a finger to his lips and walked inside quietly, his gun held out in front of him. The house was more of a trailer with no basement that they could see and they cleared it quickly. The thick layer of dust on the floor told them that no one had been inside it for years.

Blaise lifted his chin towards the barn and they headed in that direction.

The barn door creaked loudly when Blaise pushed it open. They both winced but kept moving forward. What else could they do? They checked every stall and even looked inside a large white freezer that stood against one wall, looking very out of place.

They headed back to the other side of the barn and Blaise whispered, “I’m going to check the loft, you keep your gun ready and watch both doors.”

West nodded, and stationed himself at the bottom of the ladder leading up to the loft. Blaise tucked his gun in his holster and started climbing. The wood creaked under his weight. When he was above West’s head, a rung snapped under his foot and he plummeted down, catching himself with his hands on the rung above his head. That one snapped too and he fell to the ground with a grunt.

“Are you OK?” West whispered fiercely, his eyes still moving between the two barn doors.

Blaise’s hand immediately went to his ankle. His face was screwed up in pain and sudden sweat soaked his dark skin.

“Ankle. It hurts.”

“Ah fuck.”

They sat there for a moment, West feeling incredibly helpless and Blaise rolling back and forth holding his ankle, his teeth gritted to hold back a scream. Finally Blaise opened his eyes and took a deep breath.

West handed the shotgun to Blaise and pushed up the pant leg on the ankle he’d been holding. Gingerly, West took Blaise’s shoe off and examined the already puffy and bruised ankle. “It doesn't seem broken, just sprained bad,” he said in a hushed tone, his helplessness compounding.

“Can you splint it?”

West looked around the empty barn. “I could use my shirt, but it won’t help a ton. I’ll have to piggy-back you to the car.”

“Not until we clear the barn. There’s something here that we’re missing. I can feel it. Splint me up. I’ll be OK.”

West nodded, his desires painfully conflicting. He stripped his shirt over his head, then a thought struck him.

“What size shoe do you wear?”

“11.”

West started untying his own boot. “Here, try this. It’s one size too small, but that should work for you, not against you. The high ankle will go above the sprain, and if we tie it tight enough, it will work perfectly as a splint.”

Carefully, West slipped the boot on Blaise’s foot and tied it as tightly as he could. Blaise grunted and got to his feet, then hobbled around slowly. “Yeah, I can walk.” He looked upwards. “I don’t think anyone is in the hayloft.” He looked around the barn once more. “Maybe we should look out back. There could be a shed or something.”

West put his shirt back on and picked up the shotgun. He suddenly had the feeling that they were already too late. “Check the ground. Frank said something about a bomb shelter.”

Blaise looked at him closely, obvious pain on his face. “A bomb shelter? That changes everything! Let’s go check the yard. It’s probably buried somewhere. We have to find the entrance.”

Blaise limped lightly out to the yard and West followed, bargaining loosely with God in his mind.
Please let her be OK. I’ll do anything you ask of me. I’ll give away every cent I have if you want me to. I’ll start going to church. I’ll build a church! Anything.
In his mind’s eye, he could too easily see her body broken and discarded in the same way the other women had been.

A thorough search of the immediate yard yielded nothing that could lead into an underground shelter of some sort. West clenched his fists in frustration. “We’re missing it. I know it. It’s right here somewhere and we’re missing it!”

He suddenly wished he were the psychic and he could lay his hands on the ground and have it tell him where Katerina was. Blaise said something behind him but West ignored him. A voice was speaking in his head. Agnes’ voice.
You're an empath too, West, but you’re a transmitter.
OK then
, he was going to transmit.

West closed his eyes and called up Katerina’s face in his mind. He imagined yelling through a megaphone and sent his mental voice out in all directions. KATERINA, WHERE ARE YOU? HELP US!

Immediately, West saw an image of Katerina in front of him. She looked as lovely as ever, and at complete peace, in a way he hadn’t seen her look, ever. She glowed, and he could see through her, like he imagined an angel would look in real life, if there were such a thing. She smiled at him, her lovely, teasing smile, and drifted backwards on the lawn, in front of the barn door. He followed, tears springing immediately to his eyes. Was she really an angel? Was she dead already? He knew he was too late, and now this was all he would ever have. Her one last image. He ran forward, the shotgun dragging on the ground. He stumbled over a rock and when he looked back up, she was gone. He cried out and ran forward, back into the barn, but she was nowhere to be seen. Had she even been there at all?