True Colors (42 page)
He fell slowly, first to his knees, his body sliding off the blade with a wet slither, and then to his side and over onto his back. His arm flopped against Logan’s still-seizing legs, and his disbelieving gaze locked onto hers.
She stood over him, the knife in her hand dripping his blood onto the carpet, and watched the life drain from his eyes.
She didn’t remember slipping her bloody wrists out of her bonds. Didn’t remember pushing up from the chair. Didn’t remember picking up one of his knives—one at the long end of his collection on the floor. Didn’t remember deciding to take this man’s life.
“Alex?”
She heard Logan say her name, heard the question in it. But she couldn’t tear her attention away from Butch and the blood that had stopped spreading beneath him.
He was dead.
She’d killed him.
Her head felt light and dizzy, not at all like it belonged to her. She thought she might have enjoyed sliding that death-sharp blade into the man who’d tormented her with his memories. Who’d kicked Logan hard enough to break bones. Who’d tortured and raped and murdered and . . .
“Alex, please. Look at me.”
The break in Logan’s voice shifted her gaze to his. His muscles still weren’t responding to his efforts to move, yet he tried desperately to push himself up. His pale face shone with sweat and pain and . . . worry.
She dropped the knife and moved to help him. “Are you okay?” The voice didn’t sound like hers. Too calm, too even.
He grunted and tried to nod, the seizures of his muscles finally slowing to a fine trembling. Grimacing, he held a shaking hand to his ribs and looked her over. “Jesus, Alex, your wrists.”
She hadn’t noticed her own raw and bloody skin, didn’t feel the pain that should have been agony. She was numb.
“Alex, baby, are you okay?”
No, she wasn’t. She’d somehow lost contact with . . . reality. With herself. Butch had severed her connections.
She wanted them back. Now.
She reached for Logan, intending to kiss him, intending to orient herself, but as soon as she touched him, she felt her body snap taut and muscles start to jitter.
Fuck! Shit!
Alex was right. The son of a bitch set a trap!
Too late, too fucking late, and now he’s going to . . .
Oh, Jesus, Alex. She’s free! She’s—
The aftermath of the impact of Logan’s open hand on her face stung. Then he dragged her to him, muttering into her hair, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
She closed her eyes and let out a relieved sigh. He’d done it. He’d fulfilled his promise.
Then she registered that along with the roar of blood in her ears, she was hearing something new, something distant but familiar. Something precious. “Is that—”
“Dieter,” Logan cut in with a laugh. “Barking his ass off. He must be locked in a room. Upstairs, I think. He certainly sounds healthy.”
“Oh, thank God.”
Logan’s warm, blessed lips settled on hers . . . and reality fell away all over again.
It’s just as fucking cold in this dingy hallway as it is outside, and the soft cries of children permeate the dark as I ease my way along the wall, Glock heavy in my hand.
I should be outside, waiting for backup. But they’re going to be too late. I know it, and I can’t let this shit go on for one second longer. They’re little kids, for the love of God. I just can’t.
I see him in the dim light of the dank hall. I see the boy I’d spotted on the street. He looks so small. Lost and desperate and scared. A huge monster of a man, tall like a basketball player, broad like a football player—the same man I saw grab him outside—has hold of his hand and drags him along behind him.
The boy whimpers—very pale face and very red lips. Maybe six, maybe seven. Terrified. “Where’s Daddy? I want Daddy.”
The big man turns to roughly cuff him upside the head. “Shut the fuck up.”
The child stumbles and cries out, and the man yanks him off his feet by the arm, flinging his small body up against the wall and pinning him there with one meaty forearm across his small, vulnerable throat. “What part of ‘shut the fuck up’ do you not get, you little pissant?”
Rage burns in my chest. I should wait for backup.
I don’t.
“Freeze! Police!”
And I thrust my badge out in front of me with one hand, like this scumbag is actually going to take a second to study it. My finger flexes on the Glock’s trigger, ready to squeeze at the slightest provocation—give me a reason, asshole—as he turns his head to look at me, eyes glittering in the dim light.
“Let the child go and step away.” Despite my rage, my voice sounds steady, firm. I’m a cop first, a pissed-off man second.
He releases the boy, lets him fall maybe four feet to the grubby floor, and doesn’t even have the decency to flinch at the nauseating sound of snapping bone. The boy’s screams are piercing.
My finger twitches. No one would blame me for putting a bullet hole in the middle of this fucker’s forehead. Not. One. Person.
He knows what I’m thinking. He must. He gives me a smug smile, thinks I won’t do it. I’m one of the good guys. I uphold the law.
As the boy continues to howl in pain, the scumbag shows me his hands. And shit! He’s got a gun! He points it at the shrieking kid.
And fires before I can do anything more than flinch.
The gunshot deafens me. Or maybe it’s the abrupt cessation of the screams. Or the absolute black horror that blanks out my brain for an instant.
And then I’m yelling and running. “NO!”
Throwing myself down the hallway. To do what? To do . . . what?
I stop several feet away, head spinning, mind trying to grasp what has just happened. And it finally registers: I’m too late. I’m . . . too . . . fucking . . . late.
For a moment, I’m frozen. Stunned. He shot the kid point-blank. Right in front of a cop. In front of
me
.
Because
of me. I should have waited for backup.
me
.
Because
of me. I should have waited for backup.
My gun hand levels, and it’s shaking with the rage roaring through me. Rage that tells me it’s okay to take a life. I can kill this man. I’m his judge and jury. He deserves to die for what he’s done. Fucking bastard child killer.
I hear sirens right outside. Shouts inside. Scrambling feet and childlike cries for help. The cavalry is here.
I’m going to fucking kill this guy. Right fucking now.
As luck would have it, he gives me yet another reason to shoot him, one that qualifies as self-defense. He has the balls to point his weapon at me. What an idiot. He’s got to be high, got to be whacked out of his head on heroine or crystal meth.
Either way, I have no choice but to pull the trigger.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
L
ogan poked a finger at the doorbell and listened to the answering clamor of dogs on the other side of the door. It twisted him up inside all over again that she hadn’t taken her best friends with her. She’d fled Lake Avalon, left everything she cared about behind. Her sister, her parents, her menagerie.
ogan poked a finger at the doorbell and listened to the answering clamor of dogs on the other side of the door. It twisted him up inside all over again that she hadn’t taken her best friends with her. She’d fled Lake Avalon, left everything she cared about behind. Her sister, her parents, her menagerie.
Him.
For the first two weeks, he couldn’t blame her. She’d been through hell. It still rattled the shit out of him when he remembered carrying her into the ER, limp and unresponsive and ashen. When he hadn’t been able to slap or shake her out of her latest flash, he’d found Butch’s keys in the kitchen and car in the garage, and driven like a madman to get her some help.
A panicked Charlie had arrived at the ER shortly after Logan called her. She’d started firing off suggestions about beta blockers, alpha blockers, tranquilizers and God knew what else at the perplexed doctors. Soon, Alex had been stabilized. Crisis over. At least until the next day, when contact with Logan, Charlie and her dad had sent her into empathic overload all over again as she flashed on their intense, emotional reactions to her ordeal with a serial killer.
The next day, Alex left Lake Avalon. Hell, left
Florida
.
Florida
.
She hadn’t said good-bye, see you later or fuck you. She’d just taken off.
Charlie knew where she went but, ever the loyal sister, wouldn’t tell him.
“She needs time.”
“Give her space.”
“She’ll come around.”
Well, fuck that. He was tired of waiting. If what he had with Alex was over . . . Well, shit, he didn’t even want to think about it, about what would happen to him without her. Just imagining losing her made him want to sit down, drop his head into his hands and weep like a goddamn little kid. That or smash his fist through the nearest wall.
He rang Charlie’s doorbell again and checked his watch. Maybe she wasn’t here. He supposed he could call her cell and beg over the phone, but he wanted to do it in person. Again.
When he heard footsteps on the other side of the door, he straightened his shoulders.
Charlie pulled open the door and gave him a tired smile. Alex’s absence had been tough on her, too. “Hi, Logan. Come in.”
He stepped into the cool house, grinning in spite of his dark mood when six mutts, led by Dieter, tried to take him down. “Well, hey, guys. I’ve missed you, too.”
Once all the puppy love had been taken care of, he looked at Charlie and took a breath. “I know you’re protecting her, but—”
He broke off as Charlie held out a single key attached to an old leather key chain.
“What’s this?” he asked. The key looked ancient, the gold worn to copper and the edges smooth from years of use.
“Key to the family cabin.”
His heart jumped with hope.
“It’s in the Shenandoahs outside DC.”
Logan’s eyes started to sting. “Thank you.” He cleared the gruffness from his throat. “Thank you, Charlie.”
“It’s a long drive,” she said, handing him a map with an address scrawled on it.
He took the map, handled it with the respect one would give a thousand-year-old treasure map and looked it over. When he spotted the circle in Sharpie black, his pulse started to thud hard and fast. That was where he would find his treasure. Alex.
He raised his head. “I’m thinking I’ll fly and rent a car. It’ll be faster.”
Charlie nodded. “I’m not going to tell her you’re coming.”
“Thanks. I think that’s a good idea. I don’t want her to run again.”
Charlie gave him a quick, warm hug. “Bring her back, Logan. I miss my sister.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
A
lex liked chopping wood. She sucked at it, though, having to work hard to heave the damn ax blade out of the wood every time she buried it. And it took her
way
longer to make any significant progress than it would a big, strong man. But the physical labor felt good, felt real. The ache in her muscles afterward . . . also real. As was the fresh scent of the wood as she stacked it against the side of the cabin.
lex liked chopping wood. She sucked at it, though, having to work hard to heave the damn ax blade out of the wood every time she buried it. And it took her
way
longer to make any significant progress than it would a big, strong man. But the physical labor felt good, felt real. The ache in her muscles afterward . . . also real. As was the fresh scent of the wood as she stacked it against the side of the cabin.
She had no use for firewood now, other than the chopping and stacking as distracting activities. The end of May in the Shenandoah Mountains was pleasantly warm during the day and warm enough at night that an extra quilt on the bed kept out the chill.
When she heard the snap of twigs and crackle of dead leaves underfoot, she knew Logan had arrived. Frankly, she was surprised he hadn’t shown up sooner. Charlie had apparently kept her location secret longer than Alex had expected.
Her heart kicked into a higher gear, anticipation and trepidation taking turns churning her stomach. She’d prayed he would come, even as she’d hoped he wouldn’t. Such was her state of mind these days.
Taking a breath, she turned, the ax resting on her shoulder like she was Paula Bunyan without a blue ox.
He stopped in midstride and flashed her the broad smile that she’d desperately missed. “Hey,” he said.
She smiled back, heart tripping and flipping. He looked good . . . great, in faded jeans and a long-sleeved navy T-shirt only half tucked in. The strong breeze swept his hair back from his face, plastering the cotton of his shirt against his muscled chest. Her entire body heated at the absolute masculine beauty of John Logan. God, she’d missed him. She ached to run to him and jump into his arms and kiss the daylights out of him.
But she stayed where she was, practicing a new form of restraint. She called it self-preservation. Someone else might call it cowardice. Either way, the practice would keep her firmly in her own head and out of anyone else’s crazy.
“Hey,” she replied.
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