Last Light (39 page)

She wanted to scream. Instead, she walked out to the middle of the dark road. An old Pontiac was abandoned there, and she reared back and kicked its tire. “Okay, so I made a mistake. This whole thing was a horrible idea. Maybe I should just go back home.”

Vic had almost finished off the bottle. He belched. “How do you plan to do that?”

She took a few steps toward him, then stooped down in front of him. “Maybe you could take me back?”

Again, the laughter. “Nope. I’m not going back.” He bottomed his bottle, then flung it toward the woods. Then he reached out for her hand. She let him pull her next to him, and wearily sat down on the grass. He reminded her of her dad, amused at her ranting, tolerating her tantrum.

He put his arm around her, pulled her against him. “I’m telling you, you need to relax. So you don’t like Scotch. Do you want beer? Wine?”

She stiffened. “You have all that?”

“Hey, I brought what I need.” He swept her hair back from her eyes, and her heart jolted. He was too close, and she could smell the alcohol on his breath—that sour, medicinal smell that mingled with his body odor.

She pulled away and got up. “I don’t drink. I just want water.”

“Behind your seat, I got Sprite, Coke . . .”

She climbed up in the wagon and tried to see into the back. Which box held the Cokes?

Suddenly, he was beside her. “I’ll get it. I don’t want you digging through these boxes.” His voice had a sharp edge.

“Sorry.” She got off the wagon and waited as he dug through.

He tossed her a bottle, then threw down her suitcase. “That thing weighs a ton.”

“I’ll get rid of it if it means we’ll travel faster,” she said. “None of what I brought is important except for the wedding dress. What could
you
get rid of?”

“Nothing. My inventory’s crisp . . . crick . . .
critical
for this trip.”

Deni tried not to smile at his slurred speech.

“I’m doing you a favor, ’member?”

She sighed. “I know you are.”

“Then why don’t you ac’ like it?”

He looked genuinely hurt as he pulled out another bottle of Scotch.

Was he for real? “Are you gonna drink that? You’ve been drinking all day! And you just finished off that other bottle.”

“It wasn’t full. Besides, I can hold my liquor. Do I seem drunk?”

“Yes, actually. Do you drink this much at home?”

He waved her off. “You sound like one of my ex-wives.”

“Well, maybe you should listen to them.” She sat down on the dirt, watching him open the bottle. For him to drink as much as he had so far without falling over drunk, he had to be a heavy drinker. She had friends from college who drank so much that it took more and more to get a buzz.

She wouldn’t have come with him if she’d known about this. It was one thing to leave town with her friend’s dad, and another thing entirely to go with an alcoholic.

Why hadn’t she listened to Chris?

He unrolled both sleeping bags, stretched them out next to each other on the grass. In the flickering glow of the campfire, he stretched out, leaning back on his elbows.

She stayed back, arms crossed, keeping her distance. Surely he didn’t expect her to lie there beside him!

“Speaking of exes, did you know my first love was a girl who looked a lot like you?”

She swallowed. “No.”

“Beautiful girl. Soft, big brown eyes. You looked into them and felt like you were underwater, gasping for breath.” He took a drink. “She was feisty like you, too. Hard to please. Made you try harder.”

Deni sighed and looked back toward the road. It had been a mistake, getting off the main interstate. She’d been so determined to avoid her father if he came looking for her, but now she’d jump up and dance if he came along.

Vic turned over and crawled across the bag toward her. Again, he was too close.

“She used to wear her hair like yours.” He reached out and took a strand. She pulled it out of his hand. “Sometimes she wore it up, like this.” He pulled it up, piled it on her head.

She closed her eyes. “Don’t.”

“Don’t be afraid of me.” His voice came on a whisper. “I know you’re tense, but I can help you relax.”

Deni slipped out of his reach and got up. She grabbed her suitcase and put it between them.

“You’re not mad at me, are you?” he asked.

“No, I’m not mad.”

“Then come here.”

“I have to get something.” She unzipped the suitcase and dug through, as if looking for something. Her mind raced. What should she do? She wasn’t safe with him, not when he was drinking. But where would she go?

“I know you’re worried about being faithful to Craig.” His voice was still soft. He got up and came around the suitcase, close to her again. “It’s lonely out here, and we gotta long way t’go. Nobody knows what we’re doing. As they say in Las Vegas, ‘What happens here, stays here.’ ”

“Nothing’s going to happen. Here or anywhere.”

“Well, it could, y’know. No reason either of us has to be lonely.”

She looked up at him, struggling to keep her revulsion from showing. “Vic, I appreciate your bringing me with you, but if you did it so that you and I . . .” She couldn’t utter the words, so she looked away. “Well, you just need to forget it. I’m not interested.”

Silence pulsed between them, and suddenly he grabbed her arm. She swallowed a scream and looked up at him.

His eyes were razor sharp. “Don’t get haughty with me, Miss Debutante.”

She shivered, and tried to level her voice. “I’m not getting haughty. I just didn’t think there were strings attached.”

“You wouldn’t have run away with me if you didn’t like me. I been ’round the block enough to read th’ signals. You might ’s well wave a banner.”

She jerked back as if he’d slapped her. “I haven’t given you signals! I thought you were a nice man. I
trusted
you.”

“And I trusted you to show the proper gratitude. I trusted you not to be a tease.”

She caught her breath. “A tease? That’s ridiculous.”

“Comin’ over to my house in your bikini, swimming in my pool . . .”

She needed to throw up. She backed away, but he came toward her. “Leave me alone!”

“I don’t like being shunned,” he said through his teeth.

Why, oh
why
hadn’t she brought a gun? What had she been thinking? She needed to get away from him. But how? She couldn’t even make it back home without transportation. They’d come too far.

But she refused to be trapped. She’d worry about the consequences later. She bent over and zipped up her suitcase. “If this is what you want, then I’ve traveled far enough with you.”

He laughed bitterly. “You going to the bus station, the airport? You going to rent a car?”

That made her angrier. She stood the suitcase up and pulled out the handle. “I’m leaving.”

“Darlin’, you can’t leave. You’re stuck with me.”

She ground her teeth together. “Oh, yeah? Watch me!”

With that, she stepped up into the wagon and jerked out her wedding dress. She threw it over an arm and, rolling her suitcase behind her, started off down the street.

She could hear his drunken laughter in the night behind her. “I’ll be here when you come to your senses, darlin’!”

She walked faster, the suitcase bumping along the highway. The dress was getting heavier, so she draped it around her shoulders.

The night was so dark that she almost couldn’t see where she was going, and fatigue fell over her with a vengeance. She had to go so far that he couldn’t find her easily, but she needed sleep, too.

Tears burned her hot face as she walked.
Please, God . . . don’t let him follow me . . .
Surely he wouldn’t take the chance of leaving the horses and all his stock. With all her heart, she wished she hadn’t come. She had been so sure she was doing the right thing—and now look at her!

Sudden realization struck her. She hadn’t grabbed her bottle of water when she’d left! How stupid was that?

She walked between the stalled cars until she was crying so hard that she couldn’t go any farther. She leaned against a truck that had been stripped of its wheels, looked up at the sky, and wept.

She was so tired. If she could only lie down and sleep. But she feared sleeping on the ground with nothing to protect her from rodents or snakes . . . or evil people.

She looked at the cars around her. She could climb into one of them and curl up comfortably for the night.

If she could just find a car that didn’t have glass all over the seats . . .

In the darkness, she walked on, checking each car. Finally she came to a van that seemed relatively intact, except for one window that someone had smashed to get inside. She got in, and looked through the vehicle. Though it was dark, it looked like the back bench seat was clean of glass fragments. Relieved, she pulled her suitcase in. She lay down on the backseat, covered herself with her wedding dress, and used her arms to pillow her head.

She felt almost safe.

She cried herself to sleep, praying that God would protect her from vandals and animals . . . and Vic Green. Praying that He would help her figure out what to do tomorrow.

As sleep overtook her, she imagined Craig getting his first glimpse of her as she rode into town, running toward her, spinning her in his arms . . .

Then the mist of her dreams dragged her back to Crockett, and she saw Brad Caldwell sneaking behind the house as he watched her . . . the Abernathys lying on the floor in their blood . . . her brother Jeff with a gash on the back of his head . . .

Evil played its sharp refrain in her mind as she drifted off, lulling her into dreams of darker terrors than those she’d left behind.

forty-nine

It took more than an hour for one of the neighbors to locate the sheriff and bring him and several deputies to Vic Green’s home. While Doug waited, he imagined Vic and Deni traveling farther and farther away. Darkness might have brought his daughter into even greater danger. Vic was a killer, and there was no possibility he’d had good intentions when he lured Deni away.

Doug heard Kay throwing up in Vic’s bathroom, and wondered why he wasn’t doing the same. Instead of nausea, he struggled with a simmering, volcanic anger that rumbled and smoked inside him, threatening to erupt with a vengeance. He was glad Mark had stayed out of his way since they’d made the discoveries. The boy was downstairs with his mother and stepfather, ranting about his father. The emotion in his voice suggested Mark wasn’t involved, but Doug didn’t trust him.

And if the boy came within striking distance, Doug wasn’t sure he could control himself.

When the sheriff arrived, Doug showed him what they’d found. It was indisputable evidence and, according to the sheriff, offered ample probable cause to make an arrest. If only they knew where to find Vic.

While Sheriff Scarbrough interviewed Mark, Doug took Kay home.

He walked her inside, updated the kids on what they’d learned, then grabbed a box of ammunition and started back out, rifle in his hand.

“Where are you going?” Kay’s words sounded hollow.

“I’m going back to that house to wait for the sheriff to figure out where they went. Then I’m going after our daughter.”

Kay didn’t argue. “Doug, please be careful.”

When he returned to Vic Green’s house, the sheriff was still questioning Mark. Mark’s face was wet with tears and glowed red in the light of the oil lamp. His mother paced behind him.

Shadows flickered around the room, like demons wanting to play. Doug couldn’t wait to get out of this place.

“My brothers know where he went,” Mark said. “Larry and Jack are tighter with him than I am. They work in the family business.”

“Did you know your father dealt in pornography?”

Mark studied his feet for a moment. “I knew something wasn’t right. I’d found some of his magazines before . . . And I knew he had picked up a lot more web-based business in the last few years. He kept all this from me, probably because he knows I’m a Christian and would have been disgusted.”