Tell Me (34 page)

He waved out the match, the smell of burning phosphorus floating on the air.

She heard him cross the floor to the stairs.

Backing up slowly, she tried to keep a clear head. The only way down was over the rail or down the rickety steps that he was steadily climbing, his footsteps slow and deliberate.

No. That wouldn’t work. He’d block the path to the staircase. Throat tight, she considered her chances of going over the rail once he was on the upper level. She could vault over the railing cap, then grab the balusters, lower herself, and drop to the floor below, which, considering the length of her body, would be less than four feet. She was athletic, always had been. If she didn’t land wrong and twist her ankle or, worse yet, break her leg, she might make it to her car. It was worth a try.

“Nikki,” he called, sending terror through her.

“
You couldn’t let it go, could you?” he taunted. “You had to dig up the past, bring it all out into the open again and fuck up my life. Just like that stupid bitch, Effie.”

She wanted to argue that she wasn’t the one who had started the avalanche of truth from becoming known, nor had it been Effie—it was Niall’s recanted testimony that had begun the events that had brought them here. But there was no reasoning with him, she knew that. She hadn’t believed it, but now she knew he was on a path, a deadly path, that led straight to her.

Edging closer to the railing, she heard him land on the top step, and when he did, he didn’t bother with a match for effect. This time he used a small, bright flashlight and swept the beam across the loft’s interior.

She didn’t think twice but dropped her own flashlight, grabbed the top rail, and, with a leap, vaulted the railing, grabbing two balusters with her hands on the way down, sliding her weight until she had gone as far as her straining arms allowed.

“Son of a bitch!” he hollered. Footsteps pounded above her, as she stretched as long as she could to minimize the drop. With a silent prayer, hoping the worst of her injuries would be bruises, she let go.

She landed in a heap.

Hard.

Pain screamed through her right ankle.

“God
damn
it!” He thundered toward the stairs.

She kept moving.

Clambered to her feet.

The spotlight of Camp’s flashlight washed over her. “You little bitch, stop right there!”

She kept reeling forward, ignoring the dull ache pounding up her calf. Staggering, she threw herself forward, toward the door. Only a few more steps!

“Oh, no, you don’t!” he yelled, on the stairs, running down, his flashlight trained on her as she staggered toward the door. She grabbed the knob as he dropped his flashlight. It hit the floor and rolled, its beam wobbling crazily. Oh, Lord, he was close. So damned close! Yanking on the knob, she forced the door open, only to have it slammed back with the flat of his massive hand. “Gotcha!” He sounded so pleased, his breath hot against the back of her neck.

He grabbed hold of her hair, but she twisted, turning, and before he could use his damned knife, rammed her knee into his groin.

With a roar, he let go and doubled over.

She yanked the door open and ran outside, all the while fumbling for the stun gun and her keys.

Where the hell were they?

Wind was rushing over the lake, her hair blowing in front of her eyes as she half-ran, half-hobbled across the porch, all the while searching her pockets. The keys in her jacket pocket were her uncle’s; the other key was in her jeans.

Her ankle nearly gave way on the step, and she heard the door open behind her.

“No you don’t!” he yelled.

Across the yard she flew, her ankle throbbing, yanking the car key from her pocket, but he was behind her again, propelling himself across the porch and onto the yard.

He caught her at the hood of her CR-V, and this time when he grabbed her, he wrapped a meaty arm around her abdomen, and her keys slithered to the ground.

Before he could use the knife, she jabbed the stun gun against his arm and hit the button.

Electricity jolted through him, and he screamed, withering and flopping onto the ground. The stun gun slipped from her grasp.

She found her phone and hit the dial button, all the while skirting the big man, who flailed as he tried to grab at her ankles. His reflexes were off, and he was jerking uselessly in the moonlight, but she knew the effects wouldn’t last for long.

“Where’s Effie?” she demanded as he trembled at her feet. She grabbed his knife and stood over him. “Damn it, Camp, where is she?”

Reed’s phone went to voice mail. “Reed, it’s me,” she said, never taking her eye off Camp. “I’m at the cabin with Roland Camp and Effie, I think. It’s not good. Send a unit. ASAP!”

Camp was still muttering and shaking.

Slowly, with her eyes still trained on him, the knife in her hand, she crouched and felt on the ground for her keys or the damned stun gun. It was too dark to see much—even Camp was just a big, dark figure on the ground—but she knew they had to be here.

She felt blindly for the keys or the gun. Where the hell were they? Through the wet grass and the mud, her fingers scrabbled, nails breaking.

Camp had stopped flopping, but still he was groaning.

“Don’t move,” she warned, waggling the knife with her free hand, still searching the wet ground with the other. She felt the edge of sharp metal in the grass. Finally! Just as she grabbed the keys, he sprang. His huge body slammed into hers. Awkward but heavy, still twitching, he pinned her flat to the ground, her face driven into the wet grass, her nose squished with his weight.

“Y–yoou f-f-f-uckin’ bittttch,” he said, ripping the knife from her fingers. For a moment he lay breathing on top of her, gathering his strength. He was still feeling the effects of the stun gun; through his jacket she felt him move, his muscles seeming to writhe.

Desperately she tried to wriggle free. “I’ll cut you,” he warned, his voice low and deadly against her ear. “You fight me and I swear, I’ll cut you to ribbons.” She froze as she felt the blade of his knife against the soft tissue of her throat. He was still a little jumpy from the volts that had swept through his body; the knife in his hand felt unstable.

“You . . . you couldn’t leave well enough alone. You and Effie,” he said in disgust as he took in a long breath and, with what seemed to be supreme effort, hauled both himself and Nikki to their feet.

R
eed’s cell phone went off again. He’d ignored it for the first few minutes of June O’Henry’s ravings, but now he checked his messages as June was on her third rant about the violation of her civil rights or religious rights or whatever rights crossed her mind at the moment.

“I swear to God, I will take this all the way to the Supreme Court, if I have to! I’m going to sue the city of Savannah and the police department and both of you!” she declared, pointing a long finger at first Reed and then Morrisette.

“You do that,” he said as he stepped into the hallway, leaving Morrisette to deal with the indignant woman in the interview room.

As he closed the door behind him, Nikki’s message came through loud and clear.

His heart nearly stopped.

She was at the cabin? With
Roland Camp?

He dialed 911 from his cell phone and took off at a dead run.

 

Nikki knew she had to fight Camp now, while he was still not at full strength, but the blade against her throat kept her from struggling.

He was unsteady, his steps halting, but he was determined as he marched her ever forward. Over the howl of the wind, she thought she heard a car’s engine.

Reed!
Her knees went weak to think that he was close by and could help her escape the madman.

Was it her imagination, or had she seen the flash of headlights in the distance? Maybe Reed had received her earlier message. Oh, please!
Hurry, hurry, hurry! There isn’t much time!

Slowly Camp turned her back to the house, and all the while the blade was pressed to the underside of her chin, its sharp edge beginning to dig into her flesh. Desperately, she tried to think of a quick way to escape.

If Reed didn’t reach her in time . . .

But he was close. She was certain that a car’s engine was roaring ever nearer.

With the knife digging into her flesh and his hulking body pressed hard against her backside, the smell of his sweat heavy in her nostrils, he drove her slowly forward, toward the cabin.

She was thinking of another way to escape, any way, but she could scarcely do more than breathe shallowly. She could feel his rage and decided her best ploy was to appear to comply, to act as if he’d scared all the spit right out of her, that her injuries were worse than they actually were.

“You know,” he said, urging her forward, his body pushing hers over the wet grass, his knee at the bend of hers, his shin pressed into the back of her leg. Obviously he wasn’t quite in control of his body; nonetheless, they inched ever closer to what she knew to be her doom.

“You spent all this time tryin’ to figure out what happened that night, the night your friend was killed?” he pointed out, breathing hard. “You never got it, though, did ya? So maybe it’s time you had all the facts, huh, sweetheart?” His voice was becoming steadier again, the effects of the stun gun wearing off.

Nikki didn’t have to ask why he would finally tell her; it was obvious. Not only did he want to brag, but he already knew she wouldn’t be able to spread the story because he intended to kill her.

“What are they? Those facts?” she asked, trying to stall him, staggering on her weak ankle. Whatever his plans were, she had to keep him talking, delay him, give Reed time to get here.

“Stand up, bitch! I’ll tell you, since you won’t be able to share the story after this place goes up in flames.”

Fear curdled through her blood, but she didn’t admit it, wouldn’t show that she was scared as hell, her body beginning to perspire in the cold night, her mind threatening to run away with all kinds of horrid scenarios of what he would do to her
.

Hurry, Reed! Hurry.
If there was just a way to get the jump on him, to turn the tables, but the wicked knife shoved hard against her throat kept her from doing anything rash.

“It was all because of Blondell,” he said. Now they were close to the cabin, to that gaping door where the tunnel of light from his dropped flashlight cut through the night. She couldn’t die like this, not at some maniac’s hand.

“It was her fault. She’s the one who cheated. I found out that she was fucking that high-priced lawyer, McBaine. Your uncle.” He jabbed the blade harder against her flesh for effect. “That’s why she insisted they come here. Because he owned it. This is where they got together to fuck. But that night she had the kids, and after they were asleep, she and McBaine were having it out in her car. A big fight. I heard ’em screaming at each other. About her losing the baby.”

They were close to the porch now. Too close, but Roland kept talking, and all the while, as he spilled his guts, Nikki sought for a way to escape, to save herself.

“It pissed me off, let me tell you,” he said. “When I found out, I saw red. I could’ve killed her with my bare hands. I thought we were good together, but it turns out she had ‘something special’ with McBaine and played me for a damned fool.” He was breathing harder now, his anger evident in the muscles tensing around her. “But no one gets one over on Roland Camp, especially not some crazy nympho whore!” His anger radiated from him in waves. “I decided to teach her a lesson, you know, scare the living shit out of her. That’s why I brought the snake. She hates ’em. So while she and McBaine are yelling at each other in the car, so mad the windows are fogging up, I wait and wait, until he’s gone and she’s on the porch, and then I sneak into the cabin, plan to leave the snake in her bed. Would serve her right, y’know.

“That’s when I saw Amity, there, on the pull-out. She was a looker too. Like her mama.”

Nikki thought she might be sick as she thought of Amity. Camp, however, seemed to revel in his sexual prowess as he propelled her up the steps. She tripped a little, but Camp’s arm around her middle kept her upright, his blade slicing into the skin, blood beginning to run.

“Watch it,” he growled angrily.

And then they were across the porch and inside the cabin, with its weird half-light from the flashlight on the floor.

This was no good! No good!
All too vividly she remembered the last time she’d been under a psycho’s control and how the bastard had locked her in the casket. She’d hardly been able to move, barely able to draw a breath, the coffin close, so airless, so unbearable. In a blink, she was there again, in that awful space.

She was starting to hyperventilate, though Camp didn’t notice as he held her tight, his jacket bunching between them, the fabric moving as he propelled her forward.

 

Reed took a corner a little too fast, the tires of his Cadillac screaming in protest.

His phone rang and he connected. “Reed.”

“What the hell happened to you?” Morrisette demanded. “You go out to take a call, and the next thing I know I get a message saying you’re going to that damned cabin.”

“Nikki’s there. With Camp.”

“What? Holy Christ.”

“I called for backup. I’ll be there in five.”

“I’m on my way!”

Reed hung up and only hoped he wasn’t too late.

 

“I . . . thought Blondell loved you,” Nikki said.

“So the fuck did I! That’s why I wanted to have it out with her, clear the goddamned air.” He was furious now, reliving that night in his mind. “But things changed when I saw her with that bastard McBaine. Then the goddamn snake got loose. Everything was going to hell in a fuckin’ handbasket, but then McBaine finally leaves and Blondell goes to the porch. I wanted to kill her. I really did. But then I saw Amity lying there on the couch, dead to the world. And God, she was beautiful. More beautiful than her own mother. So I think to myself, what better way to get back at Blondell than to fuck her daughter. Jesus, I got hard just thinking about how she would react. It was, like, almost too good to be true, just there for the taking, like God wanted me to do it or somethin’.”

He said it as if he believed it, as if divine intervention were the reason he planned to rape a teenager. Dear God . . .

“But I never got the chance. The damned snake must’ve crawled into the sleeper, under the covers somehow, and bit her. All of a sudden she’s screamin’ bloody murder, and Blondell runs in! It was as if she’d been waitin’ for me to show up! But we never struggled for no gun. I didn’t have one. I just ran.”

“But no.... the gun, the kids,” Nikki said weakly, trying to keep her wits about her, to process his confession even while she searched for an escape.

“I figured, like everyone else, that she shot ’em to shut ’em up. Probably thought they’d all die on the way to the hospital, and she even shot herself too, to make it look like someone else did it. I always wondered why she didn’t recognize me, but figured it was too dark or she was just too damned freaked.” The knife twitched in his hand, and Nikki sucked in her breath. Already she was bleeding, could feel the warm drizzle of blood sliding down her neck and under her collar. Any second he could slit her throat.

Camp seemed unaware that he’d already cut her as he continued, caught up in his memory, “Maybe she just didn’t see me or was afraid that I’d let on about McBaine being her lover, the father of her new bastard, so she made up the story about some guy with a serpent tattoo—probably thought of that because of the snake. Jesus H. Christ, that woman was a cat in heat and always lookin’ to get pregnant,” he snarled in disgust. “And then she shoots her kids? She’s a freak, let me tell you, a goddamned freak of nature, and should be locked up for life or worse.”

“You could do it. With your testimony,” Nikki ventured. They were halfway across the room, their legs illuminated by the flashlight, the upper area of the cabin dark.

“Who’d believe me? Nah!”

“You could get immunity from perjuring yourself in the first trial, work a deal.”

“Shut up. With the cops? No way. No fuckin’ way. And I’m in too deep. And she’s goin’ to be out anyway. Can’t be tried for the same fuckin’ crime twice, so what good would it do?”

The stairs were directly in front of them, running up the back wall. Did he think he could get her to climb up there again? If he did, he’d have to take the knife away from her throat. Maybe he thought he’d throw her over the railing, make it look as if she’d had an accident.

That would be good. She could risk jumping over again.

But he knew that too. Wouldn’t give her a second opportunity.

They were at the base of the stairs now, and all of a sudden she realized his intention. It was not to force her up the narrow, open staircase, but to thrust her into the closet of the bathroom, a tiny space filled with spiders and mold without a window or any air.

Images of being locked in the coffin shrieked through her brain. “She got what she deserved. Twenty years locked up and that fuckin’ attorney, your uncle, him too. Had to live with what he’d done and lost his damned case.”

Her heart twisted as she considered Uncle Alex, a weak man who couldn’t resist the seduction of Blondell O’Henry, like so many others. He’d given up his integrity for her, but then maybe he didn’t have much to begin with.

“It was his gun, y’know.”

“What?”

“Blondell didn’t own a gun, but she’d been with him, so I figured he brought it.”

She wouldn’t believe it. “No way.”

“Then she took it from him, ’cause it was his. I figured she intended to kill the kids anyway. They were just added baggage that kept her tied to her ex, and by the way, he’s a real bastard.”

“But to shoot her children . . .” Even to plan it was too gruesome and horrible to consider.

Camp walked her to the closet of the bathroom, an awful, tight place that was so small she could barely turn around, the air inside thick.
No, no, no!

“That’s why the gun was never found. I figure she ditched it, called him, and blackmailed him, and he came and got it before the cops got here.”

“That’s all just conjecture, and if he were here,” she said, suddenly desperate to vindicate her uncle, a man who had considered her his favorite niece, “why were there no tire tracks, apart from Blondell’s?”

“For a big deal reporter, you’re pretty damned stupid. He used a canoe, at least that’s the way I figured it. Didn’t he have him a house across the lake?”

“No, he lived in town, but . . .” She thought of the farm with the horses. Oh, God, Uncle Alex had known the truth all along! Had been a part of it! Her knees felt weak at his complicity. She’d discovered his affair with Blondell and half understood it, as his marriage to his wife had withered over time, culminating with the loss of their children, but she hadn’t been able to believe that he’d been here, at the cabin, on the night Amity was killed and the other children wounded. He would’ve heard the shots, even over the rain. And he didn’t turn around, try to come back and save them. But then, neither had the monster who held her in his grip.

“You had to have had a car,” she said, panicking as the door of the bathroom was suddenly in front of her face. She couldn’t go into that bathroom. Couldn’t! Still he propelled her onward.

“Truck,” he said. “An old beater I borrowed from a neighbor who was out of town and barely used it anyway. I parked a mile away near an old huntin’ blind.” He laughed a little. “I know how to make myself disappear, y’know. How to cover my tracks. Been a hunter all my life. That’s where my truck’s parked tonight, and Donny Ray, he’s got another alibi for me. Just like before. Now let’s get this over with.”