HOSTAGE (To Love A Killer) (18 page)

              Ash began shaking his head, and looked off through the window to gain a little distance from the woman sitting across from him. She was holding out on him. She wasn’t willing to reveal her true motivations, and until she did, there was no way he could trust her.

              “She doesn’t want your help. Don’t you get that?” he said, raising his voice. “She doesn’t even want my help. She wants to go up there and kill everyone. That’s what she wants. There are girls up there that need her help, that need to be rescued, and she’ll do that as well, but it will come second to killing. Hunter Mann wants to murder everyone at that farmhouse that hurt her. And lady, I don’t think you can stop her.” 

              Sarah realized she was smiling to herself.

              “You want my help,” she said. “That’s why you’re here, right?”

              Ash exhaled so faintly it was barely recognizable, but Sarah caught it, a sigh. She had worn him down, broken him. He was on her side.

              “I need your help,” he said. “We’re going to get slaughtered if we go in alone. Hunter’s blind to the possibility, but I see it clearly. Lorne Mann is going to kill us and there will be no way to bargain our way out of it.” 

              “Tell me everything you know about the farmhouse,” said Sarah.

              “Tell me how you know Hunter,” said Ash, staring her dead in the eye.

              The question took Sarah’s breath away. Did he know? It was quite a bluff if he didn’t.

              “No one helps to this extent, potentially breaking the law, for a total stranger. You’re trying to get on the inside, Detective. In terms of your career, that has to be the worst place for you. How do you know Hunter?”

              Hunter stirred from sleep slowly, waking to the sound of a train whistle in the distance. It was one of her favorite sounds. There was something romantic about it. It reminded her of all the places she could go, as though it was calling out to her, beckoning her to come, as though it would safely deliver her anywhere she wished to go. If only that was the case.

              The room was dark and it didn’t take Hunter long to realize that she was alone in the bed. Ash’s side was cold to the touch, she discovered as she slid her hand across the sheets.

              A bad feeling seized her. Where could he have gone?

              Hunter lifted her head and peered into the bathroom. It was dark and empty, the door ajar, not one sound emanated from within.

              It was possible he had gone outside to check on Twitch, or maybe invite him into the room. Hunter debated putting on her clothes, her shoes, and going outside to see.

              She resolved to give it a few minutes. The bed felt too good, but the enjoyment it gave her was being spoiled by the eerie feeling Ash was betraying her.

              Hunter rolled out of bed and began putting on her clothes. At least she had slept for a few hours.

              There was something about what she was doing right now, something about rising in the middle of the night to discover he wasn’t there, feeling the need to go off looking for him, that was acutely familiar to Hunter, almost like dejà vu, except that she sensed she would be able to place it if only she thought hard enough. Why was this so familiar? Why was waking in the middle of the night to a feeling that something was wrong and to a discovery that the person she was sleeping beside was gone, so eerily familiar? And it wasn’t just that someone was gone, that didn’t quite describe the feeling accurately enough. It was that
Ash
was gone. There was something about
Ash
being gone that was so strikingly familiar that it took her breath away.

              That’s when it hit her.

              Hunter sat down on the edge of the bed, holding her left shoe in her hand, stunned. She was realizing where she knew Ash from. She was remembering why he had a bullet key chain identical to her bullet necklace, to the bullet pendants that all the girls at the farmhouse had been given.

              Ash had dodged the question a million times. He had come up with so many things to say when she had asked how he had gotten the bullet key chain, but never had he answered her directly in a way that made sense.

              And now she was remembering.

              The memory was faint, murky at best, but nevertheless Hunter knew it was true. When she had been a very young girl, just after Grizzly had abducted her from her mother’s shopping cart in broad daylight, Hunter had been made to sleep in a small bedroom at the farmhouse. This had been before Grizzly abducted more and more girls, before the different camps were made, before the horrifying games in the barn had begun. The farmhouse had been a quiet, almost peaceful place, and the little room, her bedroom, had been cozy, homey, a place she liked. There had been a little boy there with her. He had been made to sleep in the little room as well, and even though he had his own bed, he used to sleep next to Hunter. He had gotten in trouble for it, for sleeping in her bed instead of his own. Hunter had woken to the sounds of him being punished in the hallway for it. That had been the feeling. That was where the eerie bad feeling was coming from, her memory of waking to discover her snuggly sleeping buddy was gone from the bed.

              It hadn’t been just any little boy. It had been Ash. Her father had called him Asher, but Hunter used to call him “ashes”. She remembered how they had sung that nursery rhyme, “ring around the rosey” before getting into bed each night.

              Hunter was certain. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that Ash had been at the farmhouse. Had he been taken? Had he been sold to the man he believed was his father? Would Ash remember? Did he already know? Was it something he had been keeping from her like so many other secrets he had carried?

              The turn of the doorknob stole her attention. Hunter watched the door open, expecting to see Ash on the other side. He was, but Hunter’s gaze was drawn to the woman behind him. The detective.

              Hunter stood immediately, backing away, glancing down at herself feeling suddenly under dressed, as her mind began racing, connecting the dots, piecing together that Ash hadn’t accidentally run in to the detective. He had sought her out. He had brought her here on purpose.

              “What’s going on?” asked Hunter, glaring at Ash.

              “Please don’t be mad,” he said, his eyebrows rising, imploring her to stick with him.

              “What is she doing here?” demanded Hunter, raising her voice.

              “I’m sorry, Hunter, I reached out,” said Ash.

              “You lied to me?” he asked.

              “She can help,” he said.

              “We don’t need her help,” said Hunter, folding her arms. “She’s a cop, do you get that?”

              “I know, but Hunter, she really can help us,” said Ash.

              “Did she tell you that?” asked Hunter in a sarcastic tone. “I can’t believe you’d buy that.”

              “I didn’t at first, but we talked for awhile,” said Ash. “Can we all sit down? Will you hear us out?”

              It was as though Hunter didn’t recognize his face. The fact that he had gone against her so adamantly, disregarding her wishes, felt like a knife in her gut.

              “She knows about your dad,” said Ash.

              “Oh she does, does she? What does she know?” It was a rhetorical question and Hunter asked it in a snide tone, as anger boiled through her blood.

              Ash crossed to her and before she knew it he was holding her arms, stroking her, gazing deeply into her eyes, trying to connect with her, to convince her. It was nauseating.

              Hunter jerked her shoulders free from his touch.  

              “We can’t go to the farmhouse alone,” said Ash. “We need help.”

              “We don’t need her help,” said Hunter. “She’s a cop.”

              “I am, that’s true,” said Sarah. “But Hunter, I’m also your mother.”

              It knocked the wind right out of her.

              Hunter couldn’t believe her ears. Her heart skipped a beat, her breathing clipped in her throat. She felt as though she couldn’t get any air. She looked frantically between Ash and the detective, searching for any hint that it was a lie, a trick, a terrible joke. There was no way it could be true. Her mother?

              “My mother’s dead,” said Hunter, her eyes turning flat, cold, dark.

              “Did Lorne tell you that?” asked Sarah.

              “Is this a joke?” asked Hunter, reeling in a torrent of disbelief.

              “It’s not a joke,” said Sarah.

              “Where have you been all my life? How did you find me now?” Hunter had a million more questions, but the rage inside her was making it impossible to think straight. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” she yelled, exploding with an intensity of anger she thought might split her straight down the middle.

              Suddenly, Hunter sobered up, the rage that had been flooding through her dissipated into nothing. Her blood ran cold.

              In the blink of an eye, Hunter crossed backwards with heavy steps to a chair at the back of the motel room, and snatched the gun from her purse.

              She aimed it at Sarah in an instant.

              “Hunter, don’t,” said Ash.

              “Why not?” asked Hunter, her voice so calm and cool it was eerie. “If she really is my mother, then she’s to blame for what I’ve been through. She should have found me, saved me.”

              “I did find you, Hunter,” said Sarah.

              “It’s too late now,” she said, cocking the gun, steadying her aim.             

              “Do you want to kill me? Or do you want to expose Lorne Mann for the monster he is, expose everything that’s happening at the farmhouse, and still have the satisfaction of killing each and every last one of them?” asked Sarah. “I don’t have a problem with anything you had to do to survive back in New York. And I don’t have a problem with anything you need to do at that farmhouse. You want to kill them, and I won’t stand in your way. I’m only here to offer my advice on how to succeed and get away with it, leaving enough pieces behind that everyone will know what he was doing at that farm. Are you with me?”

              Sarah stared intensely at Hunter. It was like looking at herself through the window of time. They were so similar, and yet so different. Sarah sensed Hunter was hanging on by only a thread, but it didn’t scare her. The difference between them was that Hunter was stronger. Hunter could do what Sarah never had. She knew she could. She believed in her.

              Hunter’s hands began to shake, rattling the gun. Despite herself, tears welled up in her eyes, and her mouth twisted into a frown. She begged herself not to fall apart like this, but after a moment she couldn’t help it. Hunter let go, allowing the tears to fall.

              “He needs to pay for what he’s done,” said Hunter finally, the words bursting through sobs that stuttered out uncontrollably.

              “He will, I promise you,” said Sarah. “Please give me the gun.”

              “Blair is there. She’s still being tortured. He’s going to kill her. I have to get her,” yelled Hunter.

              “You will,” said Sarah. “I’m not going to stand in your way. I’m going to help you.”

              Her entire body was trembling. Hunter’s hands felt numb. Her legs turned to rubber and felt soft beneath her, but she continued to point the gun at Sarah without faltering.

              “Please, Hunter,” said Ash. “Please put the gun down.”

              “You have to tell me,” said Hunter through her teeth. “Where were you all these years?”

              Sarah hesitated to answer.

              Hunter raised the gun, aiming away from Sarah’s chest for her head. “Answer me,” she said in a deep voice that contained such a hard edge of exhaustion it almost sounded inhuman even to Hunter’s ears. “Where were you?”

              “I was there. The whole time,” said Sarah. “Let me explain.”

              But Hunter couldn’t.

              She squeezed the trigger.

              ###

TO LOVE A KILLER.

Connect with LEXIE RAY on

FACEBOOK