Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (124 page)

Their eyes met. She shook her head.

Conversation became sporadic, and finally ceased as Roberta and Carl neared her house. For the past several miles Robbi had been thinking about Jake. Where was he right now? What was he doing? Then, from a block away, she spotted his car parked in front of her house. Her pulse quickened.

“Company,” Carl said.

Jake sat behind the wheel. He glanced over and their eyes locked for a split second before Roberta pulled into the driveway. After shutting off the engine, she looked in the rearview mirror and watched him walk up the drive.

Roberta and Carl Masser met Jake at the side entrance. Before he had a chance to say anything, Roberta invited him in.

The kitchen was hot and stuffy. Both men accepted a beer. Roberta poured herself a glass of Chardonnay. They sat at the kitchen table with the tinkling wind chimes filling the void.

“Roberta…” Jake began.

“Were you taking money from my mother to treat me?” she said with a tightness in her voice.

“No, I’d never do anything like that. She called me but—”

“And the woman with the ankle bracelet—Belinda— she was really a patient of yours?”

“Yes, of course.”

She stared him straight in the eye. “You should have leveled with me in the beginning.”

“I know.”

Carl glanced from Roberta to Jake, looking uncomfortable.

Poor Carl, Robbi thought, conflict surrounded him today.

“Robbi and I went to her parents’ place,” Carl said. “She thought—”

“I had a vision of a church,” she cut in brusquely. A restless energy had her on edge. “A church in the woods. I think that’s where he’s keeping Maggie.”

“Any luck?” Jake said.

She shook her head. “We really didn’t look. Not yet anyway.”

The chimes tinkled.

“There’s a breeze,” Robbi said. “We could use some air.” She started to rise, stopped, her hands flat on the tabletop. Her eyes became fixed on the window above the sink. She realized then the reason for her nervous energy. Something was about to happen.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Margaret lagged behind the big man on a narrow footpath that cut through thickets of manzanita and button brush. The full moon, a luminous orb low in the sky, followed along.

She wore the long white dress and a pair of thin-soled shoes resembling ballet slippers—the only shoes available to her. When she stepped on a sharp pebble or twig, she made a tiny, involuntary cry. Her mood was dismal and promised only to get worse. Nearly three weeks had passed since she’d been taken prisoner by this madman who called himself Joe. Reflections of Sonny and her former life filled her waking hours, depressing her beyond all rationality.

Lately he had been as sullen as she, leaving her locked away in that cramped room for longer periods of time. The flashlight batteries were nearly dead. Without the light she would die.

Last night when she’d begged to go home, he’d told her to leave. The bastard knew she was afraid of the dark, afraid of the wilderness and what was out there, especially at night. He knew she couldn’t go, and his smugness when she’d come crawling back made her want to scream, to strike out at him. And then he had come to her, violating her. For the first time she seriously considered killing herself.

And now here they were, on another of his tiresome nature pilgrimages. When would he get it through his ugly, thick skull that she would never take to this godforsaken place?

She slowed, deliberately being difficult, refusing to share even a tiny fragment of his enthusiasm. To the left of the path a bush of wild pink roses grew. He stopped, picked a small bouquet, and pressed it into her hand.

She threw them on the ground and turned away.

From the corner of her eye she saw him bend down and pick up the roses. His blunt fingers caressed the petals tenderly.

“She doesn’t see your beauty,” he mumbled to the flowers. Then he crushed the roses in one massive hand, the tiny needle-sharp thorns burrowing into his palm.

She looked at him, feeling a prickle of fear.

For the longest time he stared at her, saying nothing. There was something obscure in the black eyes. Inflamed, frightening.

He held out the hand with the crushed flowers. Pinpricks of deep purple blood rose up from the embedded thorns. “You don’t want to try.”

She attempted to turn away again.

He grabbed her arm, pulled her around to face him.

“I hate it here!” she cried. “I want to go. God, let me go!”

“Go,” he said in a deadly calm tone.
“Go.
Get off my mountain.”

Panic rose. “I don’t know the way.”

He squeezed her arm. She cried out, tried to wrench free.

“I won’t share my mountain with you. Get off.”

“Lead me down.”

He laughed harshly.

She looked around frantically. “How? Which way?”

“The dress and shoes…leave them.” He reached for her.

She stumbled backward. He could never allow her to leave this mountain alive. He was going to kill her. Suddenly she realized how desperately she wanted to live.

“I want the dress. It belongs here…for her.” He advanced toward her. “Now or later, it don’t matter.”

She backed up. A mournful wail escaped her lips. And then she turned and ran.

________

“Roberta?”

Jake said softly. She stared out the window above the sink, then slowly lowered herself onto the chair.

“What’s happening?” Carl asked.

Jake raised a hand to silence him.

Roberta’s eyes flickered rapidly. She was seeing something no one else in the room could see.

________

Eckker waited ten minutes. Maggie had been out of sight for some time, but in the dark, and with her flimsy shoes, the going would be slow. The sound of her crashing through the manzanita, scrambling over broken limbs and bits of loose rock, had eventually died away as well. All was quiet now.

He couldn’t let her leave the mountain. She had brought it on herself. She could’ve been happy here, but she just wouldn’t try.

He began the hunt.

He moved to his left—the direction Maggie had chosen once she thought she was out of sight and sound—and forged through the brush confidently. He knew these woods. There was no place she could hide for long. No way for her to escape.

He moved forward. Stopped. Listened. No hurry, he had all night. Forward. Stop. Listen.

It was dark now. Darker inside the canopy of trees, but the moon’s stark rays filtered through the branches. Her white dress would practically glow in the dark.

A twig snapped. Movement to his right. Something shuffled out from beneath the low boughs of a ponderosa pine. It was only a raccoon, its eyes fiery in the metallic light of the moon. Eckker had begun to turn away when Maggie came crashing out from a nearby tree. She passed so close he could have reached out and stroked the soft cotton of her dress. He feigned a lunge, missed, going down on his hands and knees in a bramble patch. He looked up to see her veer off to the left.

Just where he wanted her to go. The closer she got to the shaft, the less carrying he would have to do once he caught her.

He followed. She would run again, blindly, without thought, with only sheer terror driving her onward.

Twenty minutes later, tracking only by sound, he continued to pursue. Then all was quiet again.

He paused, listening.

He pictured her buried deep in dense undergrowth, her breathing labored, her heart pounding. This time she would not come out. He would have to find her. She would die before she’d run another foot. She would die.

He crossed the footpath and there in the recess of a giant boulder, underbrush filling the crevice, he saw something bright. A bit of white fabric.

He stooped, lifted the hem by two fingers, and began to pull slowly. He waited for the resistance, but there was none. He gave an impatient yank. The dress dangled limply in his fingers.

He whirled around just as the thick log came down hard against the back of his neck and shoulder. He stumbled and fell. He turned to see her running naked into the trees.

He had underestimated her. She had continued to run, to fight back. Although no match for him, she’d finally taken a stand. The hunt continued.

The sight of her pale body stayed within view of his sharp hunter’s eyes. She ran blindly, keeping to the path. Within a quarter mile of the pond, he caught her. She cried out as his hand shot forward and grabbed her shoulder, spinning her around. By her throat he lifted her from the ground, her bare legs thrashing, kicking. Soon she lost consciousness.

Effortlessly, he heaved her over his broad shoulder, then carried her the short distance to what would be her final place on earth.

At the shaft he hauled away the fallen tree, then lifted the wooden plank. The rank stench coming from the hole sobered him.

She regained consciousness as he reached for her. The sight of him brought the terror back into her eyes. The smell of death from the deep hole turned her into a feral beast. She twisted, beat out at him. “Sonny!” she screamed out. “Sonny, oh, plea—“

Eckker held her by the throat, squeezing, excitement growing in him as she struggled in vain. He squeezed until she resisted no more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The ghastly image gradually faded. Roberta blinked, sucked in a sharp breath then slowly let the air out as her body went limp. On the tabletop she laid her head in the circle of her arms. Her heart continued to hammer madly in her chest.

Jake knelt by her chair and stroked her hair, then enfolded her in his arms. She felt safe there, breathing in the clean smell of pressed cotton and a light scent that she’d come to recognize as his. She closed her eyes, blanking out everything else for the moment. Soon she would have to dredge it all up, relive it. She had no strength for it now.

“What happened?” Carl’s voice betrayed his trepidation.

“Give her a minute,” Jake said. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You okay?”

“I think so.”

Carl handed her a tall glass of water. “It was Maggie, wasn’t it?”

Unable to meet Carl’s fervent gaze, she looked away and nodded.

He stood staring at her anxiously. Robbi instinctively squeezed Jake’s arm.

“So tell me,” Carl said, his eyes boring into hers. “Goddammit, tell me!”

“Knock it off, Carl,” Jake said, “You’re scaring her.”

Carl knelt on her other side. “I’m sorry, Robbi. It’s just—look, what did you see? Jesus, you’ve gotta tell me, please.”

She wet her lips. “They were in the forest. She got away from him and ran. He chased her.”

“Did he catch her?”

“I—I don’t know,” she lied. “That’s all I saw—her running from him.”

“You said a name,” Carl said. “You yelled out a name. Why?”

“She called for someone named Sonny.”

“Oh, Jesus!” Carl said in a groan, slapped at his thigh, spun around. “Oh, Jesus Christ almighty.” His broad chest heaved in and out. He glared at Jake, then Roberta, his expression unreadable. “That’s her nickname for me. Nobody knows that. I don’t let her use it in front of other people.”