He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not (37 page)

He refused to believe that. He’d failed her once all those years ago by letting Northwood’s killer go free. He couldn’t fail her again.

Once inside the elevator, he pulled Amanda’s list of suspects out of his jacket pocket. He’d found it earlier today when he went home to get the Northwood file, hoping to find some clue that would tell him where Bennett, or Riley, would have taken Amanda.

She’d drawn circles around the words “cop,” “mechanic,” and “Riley,” with question marks beside each one. Each conclusion was explained with meticulous notes referring back to the exact report or interview in each file that made her reach that conclusion. In a matter of hours she’d done a better job of analyzing the data than any of the detectives on his team—including him—had done in weeks.

He drew a ragged breath and crumpled the paper into a ball, shoving it back into his pocket. Twice she’d asked him to look at it yesterday, but he hadn’t. If only he’d listened to her, given her five minutes, she’d still be safe. It was entirely his fault that Karen had been hurt, that Amanda had been abducted again. And worse than that, the man who had her was the same man he’d let go. Amanda would never have been hurt if it weren’t for his incompetence. She’d still have her dreams, still be able to have a family.

The elevator doors opened and he shoved his way past the people in the lobby, racing through the building to his car. He was backing out of the parking space when someone tapped on his passenger side window. Pierce leaned down and motioned for Logan to unlock the door. When he did, Pierce got in and slammed the door shut.

Logan raised a questioning brow.

“I think you’re a damned fool, Logan. You’re too emotionally involved in this case to be part of the search. I also know I can’t stop you, so I’ll settle for trying to keep you from getting your head blown off if you do happen upon Bennett somewhere.”

“Or Riley,” Logan added, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. “Whoever has Amanda, once I find him, he’s the one who’ll have his fucking brains blown out, not me.”

Pierce swore and dramatically covered his ears. “I didn’t hear that.”

Logan punched the gas and raced out of the parking lot.

Chapter Twenty

A
manda sucked in a sharp breath and eased the handcuffs off the raw, stinging cuts on her wrists. Not that it mattered. As soon as she let the cuffs go, they’d scrape across her cuts again. She’d tried to tear a strip out of her t-shirt to use as a cushion, but without scissors or a knife it was hopeless.

A bead of sweat trickled down between her breasts. She rubbed her shirt and glared at the window on the far wall of the cabin. Inside the air was hot and sticky. Outside the blue sky beckoned through a pane of glass only ten feet away.

It might as well have been a hundred.

Both the window and the door next to it were beyond the reach of the six foot chain that connected Amanda’s handcuffs to the metal loop bolted to the floor.

Just like four years ago.

And just like four years ago, her friend had paid a terrible price for being with her. Was Karen still alive? An image of Karen, bloody, beaten, tossed out of the car as if she were garbage, flashed through Amanda’s mind.
Please, God, let her be alive.

A prickling of unease skittered up her spine and she glanced toward the window again. How much longer did she have before he returned? If she was still chained to the floor when he got back, she didn’t have a chance. She fisted her hands around the chain, hissing at the sting of metal on her open cuts. Her palms were a mess, slippery with blood from trying to yank the chain free. So far, no amount of tugging had budged that stubborn loop of metal. All she’d managed to do was stir up dust when the chain rapped against the floor. But she couldn’t give up. If she did, Logan would blame himself for her death.

She couldn’t imagine the anguish he must be suffering right now. For ten years he’d worried that the killer he’d accidentally let go might have hurt someone else. Now he knew the answer was yes, and that she was one of the ones hurt.

If she didn’t survive, he would always blame himself. She couldn’t give up. She had to make it, for Logan.

She lowered herself to the floor, wrapped the chain around her hands and braced her sneakers against the wall.

One.

Two.

Three. She pushed and strained, gritting her teeth against the sharp, fiery burn in her hands. Her legs quivered and her thighs began to cramp, but she fought through the pain, arching her back, panting with exertion. The wood floor creaked. Did the metal hook move, just a tiny bit? A spark of hope had her pulling harder, but the muscles in her arms gave out. She lost her grip on the chain and pitched backward, crying out when her head smacked the hard floor.

“Damn it.” She pounded a fist against the floor and rubbed the back of her head. Unshed tears burned her eyes and clogged her throat. It would be so easy to give in, to lie on the floor and wait for the inevitable. Before she’d met Logan, that’s what she would have done. She would have felt she deserved her fate because she owed it to Dana.

Logan had made her whole again. He’d made her realize she had worth, that Dana’s death wasn’t her fault. She deserved another chance at life, another chance at happiness. The only one responsible for Dana’s death was the man who’d killed her. Logan had done that for Amanda, he’d given her back her life. Now she had to return the favor. She had to make it out of here and teach Logan the same lesson he’d taught her. He had to learn to forgive himself. He deserved to be happy again, too.

She took a deep breath, coughing when the humid air hit her tortured lungs. Bracing her feet against the wall again, she gritted her teeth against the sharp stab of pain in her palms and took up the slack in the chain.

One.

Two.

Three.

Pull.

T
he sun was sinking, along with Logan’s hopes of finding Amanda alive. He and Pierce had driven to the park where Carolyn O’Donnell was killed, but the park was flooded with volunteers who were already searching every inch.

They drove to Amanda’s house but saw no signs of anyone having been there since the police finished their last investigation only a few days ago.

They’d driven down I–10 to the condo that was supposed to be a safe house. Even though the fire department had used their hoses to clean the blood from the parking lot, a dark stain still remained. Logan steeled himself against the pain that shot through him, and he steered his Mustang to the edge of the woods that bordered the condominium complex.

He and Pierce searched the woods but didn’t find any fresh tracks to indicate the killer had waited there for Amanda, or that he’d taken her back into the woods after abducting her.

FBI agents had searched both Bennett’s apartment in town and Riley’s home outside of town, but found no signs of Amanda. Riley was still missing. Logan had issued a statewide BOLO alert, telling everyone in law enforcement to be on the lookout for Riley as well as Tom Bennett.

If Riley was innocent, as Pierce still believed, he’d better come back with a damn good excuse for not answering his phone. If he had a good lead on Amanda’s location, he should have phoned it in, called for backup. Riley was young, inexperienced. If he tried to be a hero, Amanda might be the one who paid the price.

In desperation, Logan drove back to his house and retraced the route Karen had taken to the safe house, looking for tire tracks along the side of the road, hoping he could spot where the killer might have pulled out behind her. If he could do that, he could backtrack and see where the car came from. Of course that theory only worked if the car had driven through grass or dirt to get to the paved road, definitely a long shot.

Any reasonable man would have given up hours ago.

Pierce had stopped making suggestions and quietly sat in the passenger seat watching the scenery roll by, as if he’d given up hope and was waiting for Logan to come to the same conclusion.

“She’s still alive,” Logan said, for perhaps the dozenth time in the past half hour, as if by saying it he could somehow make it true.

Pierce looked over at him but didn’t say anything. He turned back toward the window.

A few miles down the road from Logan’s house, he passed Mill Cove Road, the same road the killer had driven with Amanda four years ago when he took her to the cabin at Black Lake.

“Pierce, they’ve already searched Mill Cove Road right?”

“I’m sure they have. It was at the top of the list when we organized the search parties. Give me a sec. I’ll make sure.” Pierce pulled out his cell phone and pushed the speed dial. “Nelson, it’s Pierce. No, we haven’t found anything. Look, Logan wanted to make sure you’d already checked Black Lake.” A minute later his eyes widened. “Why the hell not?”

Logan cursed viciously and braked hard, wheeling the Mustang around in the middle of the road. He gunned the engine and headed back toward Mill Cove Road.

“H
old out your hands so I can take off the chain. Hurry. We have to go.” The man who’d hurt Karen and tasered Amanda glanced behind him at the cabin door. He’d told Amanda his name was Tom, that he’d chained her up to keep her safe. He was trying to help her. Having seen how he’d “helped” Karen, she knew better.

Amanda backed against the wall, holding the chain by her side, ready to wrap it around his neck if she got the chance. Her hands stung from the sweat running into her cuts and her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her chest, but she had to make a stand. The chain was her only weapon. She wasn’t giving it up. “If you want to help me, toss me the key and leave. I won’t tell anyone about you.”

He clutched the handcuff key in his hand, cocking his head to the side. “You’re trying to trick me.”

Amanda weaved in front of him, waiting for a chance to kick his feet out from under him.

His eyes narrowed and he frowned, crinkling the scar on his face, pulling his lip into a sneer. The effect was startling, disturbing, and even though Amanda’s scar wasn’t nearly as dramatic as his, she finally understood how difficult it might be for someone to see her for the first time without displaying an outward reaction. If she survived, she’d never again get irritated at someone if they flinched when they saw her scar.

He suddenly charged forward, shoving her against the wall, knocking her down. She fell hard, cracking her head against the floor again. Pain radiated through her skull, pounding through her temples. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth from her split lip. Her vision blurred—whether from the pain or a concussion, she wasn’t sure. She shook her head, desperate to bring “Tom” back into focus, but she only succeeded in making her head pound harder.

“It’s your fault you got hurt. Stop fighting me. I’m trying to help you.” A quick tug of her wrists, a clicking sound, and the chain pooled onto the floor in a series of loud thuds.

He’d unlocked the cuffs. She was free. He reached out for her and she twisted out of his reach, tripping over the length of chain on the floor. She scrambled to her feet, diving out of the way just as he grabbed for her.

“P
ull over here,” Pierce said in a low voice. “I see another cabin through those trees.” He pointed toward the small square building and Logan nodded.

“I see it.”

They left the Mustang parked on the side of the road. Circling around to the back of the cabin, they drew their guns and crept through the edge of the trees, splitting up to go around on either side. They met up at the front of the cabin, facing each other from opposite sides of the door. Logan quietly twisted the doorknob. Locked.

He held up his hand, signaling Pierce. Then he brought his hand down in a short chopping motion.

“Police!” they both yelled.

Logan slammed against the door, busting it open, banging it against the far wall. He ran inside with Pierce close on his heels, both of them crouching down, guns drawn.

The cabin was empty.

Amanda wasn’t here. No one had been in this cabin since Logan and his men had checked it out over a week ago.

“We’ll check the other cabins. Let’s split up so we can cover the cabins more quickly. If she’s here, we’ll find her,” Pierce assured him.

Logan nodded and led the way out the door.

Amanda had to be here—in one of these cabins on Black Lake—because, God help him, he didn’t know where else to look.