Unforgivable (43 page)

“You want me to call you Larry now?”

“I don’t want you to call me anything.”

He was depersonalizing her, making her an object. He unlocked the cuff, jerked her out from his side of the vehicle, and pulled her toward the house.

“You can’t kill me,” she said, hating the desperation in her voice. “You said you couldn’t because I’m your wife.”

“You’re not legally my wife, as you pointed out,” he said, testing the first tilted step before stepping onto it. She was forced to follow each tenuous step. “I don’t know you anymore. Your hair…” He tugged on a hank of her hair. “Those clothes…you’re just like the rest of them.”

“I’m not, Ben. I’m that little girl you wanted to possess. You’ve seen me grow up, you’ve seen me every day for years. I gave you foot rubs.”

The windows were broken out. The wooden door was warped, but he managed to shove it open. Dust and cobwebs covered everything. Critters scurried across the floors as a shaft of daylight shot across the old floorboards. They were thrust back into the dimness when he pushed the door closed again. A disintegrated wicker chair sat in the middle of the room, the only piece of furniture left. Something, or many somethings, had been eating away at the wicker strands and gnawing on the wood. The cabinets in the kitchen were left open, two of them on the verge of detaching from the ceiling. 

He was looking around fondly, remembering another time, another woman. Another victim. “I used this place years ago. I was afraid the sleeping pills I slipped you would wear off by the time I got home, so I had to find someplace closer. The barn worked out wonderfully.”

No wonder she’d been groggy sometimes in the morning. “Are you going to kill Dr. Buchanan like you killed Ben Ferguson?”

He pulled her down a dark hallway. “No, I just want his documentation. Mrs. Turner was kind enough to let me stay with her and Ken. I pretended to be sick this morning, so I could look for his birth certificate, diplomas. I was supposed to meet them at the fair later. Luckily I saw you drive by. One last loose end to tie up, and then I’ll find another place to settle into.”

“And you’ll kill more women.”

He smiled, though he still hadn’t looked at her. “It’s what I do.”

The back room wasn’t as dusty as the rest of the house, though he obviously hadn’t used it in a few years. There was no bed, only a naked frame that had no head rail like the one in the barn. Fear was now pulsing through her as she thought of those other women and her own fate. Especially when she saw the rusty steel rings secured to ceiling rafters exposed by the rotting wood. She involuntarily jerked away, but couldn’t go far.

“Ben, please don’t do this. It’s me, Katie. You can’t just pretend you don’t know me.”

He tugged on the rings, testing them. Not even looking her way in response.

Silas, if you
’
re there, if you
’
re with me at all, please, please come.
She had to believe he would at least look for her, even though she’d left him the way she had. If he couldn’t feel her anymore, all he’d have to go on was the festival. She and his car would be gone. He’d never think of coming way out there. And, she realized with hope dimming, he had no transportation or way to get a car.

Ben pulled the bed frame beneath the rings, dragging her along with him.

She was keeping her eye on the gun he’d set on the windowsill. “Ben, do you hate women?”

“Ben’s dead.”

“Do you hate women?”

“There you go, trying to psychoanalyze me again. No, I don’t hate women. I love women. They’re wonderful and soft and their bodies can do such marvelous things.”

She was sorry she asked, especially from the awed expression on his face. More sorry for the images that crowded into her mind helped by seeing Silas’s pictures and notes on the victims. He’d experienced Ben’s heinous crimes through the victims’ eyes. Would he experience her own? She looked deep inside her, but couldn’t feel him in there anywhere.

Oh, God, I
’
m on my own.

Ben had set the duffel bag on the floor nearby. He unzipped it and pulled out two more sets of handcuffs. She’d tried to remain calm, looking for an opportunity to escape. That calm was eroding away. He would put the other cuff around her wrist and hang her from those rings. What else did he have in his bag of tricks? She realized she’d seen that bag in the back of the van a few times. Not once had she thought to open it.

Ben surprised her. He clamped the cuffs around her ankle. She jerked out of his grasp when he grabbed the second pair out of the bag.

“No! You can’t do this!”

He was far more experienced at securing women than she was in escaping a mad man. He simply pulled her off-balance. She landed on the floor with a hard thud. Her hip took the brunt of the fall, and it was no comfort to know that pain would be the least of what she’d go through. She still fought him, kicking and trying to pull her knee up into his groin. He pinned her down so she was immobilized, then clamped a cuff on her other ankle.

She put up a fight again when he stepped onto the bed frame. They both crashed to the floor. This time he took the brunt of the fall. She was still cuffed to him by her wrist, but the gun was within reach. As her free hand neared the handle, something hard slammed into her head.

Everything came and went for a few seconds. She couldn’t think straight, couldn’t think past the stark fear. He tossed the black bag back to the floor. He’d hit her with it. She felt him unlock the cuff that linked them. As she tried to collect her senses, he hoisted her over his shoulder and stepped onto the frame again.
Get it together, girl. Once you
’
re hanging, it
’
s all over!

He grabbed her ankle and raised it toward the ceiling. Metal clanked against metal. She summoned her strength and bit him in the side. He jerked back, and just as she was about to push him away, he grabbed her other ankle. She tried to twist around, but she heard the metal cuff hitting the ring on the ceiling. He moved out of her reach—and left her hanging from the rafters by her cuffed ankles.

He was rubbing his side, looking not at her but at the rings. She thrashed her arms around, but he stood just out of her reach. The metal bit into her bare ankles. When he pushed the bed frame away, what she saw stopped her tears—two more rings with chains attached to the floor. To secure her wrists with. The blood made her eyes feel like they were bulging out.

“Don’t worry, it’ll be over before your brain explodes,” he said in a flat voice. “The last girl I brought here lasted for about a day. Her mind went first, though there wasn’t much left of her anyway. I could have bought some drain opener and let you die the same way your mother died. You were so afraid of poisons since your last birthday, thinking you’d go like she did. As it turns out, you are, sort of.”

He may as well have slammed her with the bag again. “You killed her?” she asked in a hoarse voice. “My God, why?”

“I wanted you,” he said so simply, it almost made sense. At least to her blood-gutted brain. “She didn’t want you anywhere near me. Necessary killing.”

He waited for her reaction with relish. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She turned her anger and shock inward. It wasn’t fair what Ellie had gone through in her young life. Being raped by a respected man in town, being poor, and then being murdered in a horrible way.

Ellie had kept her anyway. No matter that she was a product of rape, Katie had known pure, motherly love. Though Ben could take her life, he couldn’t take that away from her. 

That was
if
she let him take her life. She swung toward the window, though she was nowhere near the gun. He saw what she was trying to do and stuffed the gun in the back waistband of his pants. He stood just out of reach of her clawing hands. “I can see that I’m not going to enjoy this,” he said in a rather disappointed tone.

Enjoy it? He was sick, and again it stunned her that she’d been married to him all these years and never saw it. 

“Then just kill me,” she said, trying to sound as strong as she could. “I’d hate to be unenjoyable.” She was out of luck and out of chances. She felt the edges of the cross against the bottom of her chin. 

“I’ll have to think of Silas. His reaction when he finds you here a few weeks from now.” That thought seemed to up his enjoyment factor. “I’ll make sure to let him know where you are.”

Oh, geez, don
’
t think about it.
But the grotesque image sprung forth, making her close her eyes at the churning of her stomach. The gnawed chair, the glittery eyes, all hungry, all waiting. When she opened her eyes, Ben was watching her.

“You’re not mad at me for killing your mama? Or are you so perfect and wonderful that you forgive me? You seemed to forgive Gary for hurting your cat.”

She remembered Silas saying the killer wondered if she’d forgive him if she knew. “You don’t deserve forgiveness, now or ever. You’ll go to hell without my forgiveness.”

“You’ll get there first.”

“I’m not going to hell.”

He smiled then, the chilliest smile she’d ever seen. “You won’t know the difference before long.”

She closed her eyes again to shut out the image of him. She saw her life. It didn’t flash before her eyes like she imagined when she heard the expression. She skimmed over it, dipping briefly into the recent memories of Silas. She’d at least experienced passion in her life. Silas had loved her without expecting anything in return. Her real regret was not being able to accept that love on his terms. He was the only one who had given her something without obligation, besides her mother and God. She had to believe that by accepting God’s love, she’d be at least saved in eternity if not in life.

“Do you remember when Harold asked you if you’d rather be killed by someone you knew or a stranger?” he asked. “You never did answer.”

“You were a stranger the whole time I knew you.”

That seemed to amuse him. He turned to get the duffel bag he’d thrown to the floor. It was now beneath the corner of the bed frame. More metal clinked inside the bag. He threw out the other set of cuffs, a knife, and the pipe.

That’s when she noticed the gun sticking out from his waistband. He reached around inside the bag. She swung forward and clawed at the handle. She was inches short of reaching it. Adding force to her swing, she grunted with exertion and grabbed for it again. The grunt made Ben start to turn around. He jerked back as her fingers locked around the handle. Her hands were sweaty, but she gripped it with everything she had in her.

“Damn you!” he said, lunging for it.

She cocked the handle, just like he’d taught her. Once the initial shock passed, his expression wasn’t afraid, but curious.

“What now?” he asked, his arms crossed in front of him.

She didn’t know. “Just stay right there.”

This time he wasn’t going to taunt her about not being able to shoot him. She was more than willing, but she had to look at her options first. If she demanded he get her down, he’d have to get close to her, close enough to grab the gun back. Or he could grab it when she tumbled to the floor.

“If you shoot me, you’ll just die here anyway, with my rotting corpse to keep you company.” His face almost looked boyish. “We could cut a deal, and you…you get to make another choice. I’ll leave you the key to the cuffs right here.” He took out the silver key and set it on the floor just out of her reach. “You live, I go free. I know you’re too selfish to die for a cause.”

She started to reach for the key, but he said, “Uh uh,” and kicked it farther away. “That’s your choice. Let me walk out of here, and I give you your life.”

“You asked if I was mad that you’d killed my mama.” Her voice quivered when she said, “I am mad. This mad.”

She pulled the trigger. The bullet exploded through his chest. He staggered backward, a shocked expression on his face. That moment of surprise he loved so much. Then he reached toward her. She shot him again. And again.
Justice for Mama, for Boots, for The Boss, and for Silas.
Justice was a cause worth dying for. Anger and rage fueled her finger. It wasn’t pleasure she felt at killing him. Only pure, selfish hatred. His gaze never left hers until he fell against the wall and slid to the floor. His chin rested on his chest. He lifted one shaking hand and touched the blood on his torn chest. When he looked up at her, his hand dropped. His eyes went glassy.

She couldn’t breathe. She watched him, watched his chest remain still as death. Even when she took her first halting breath, she didn’t trust that he was dead. She waited until she was sure he couldn’t be holding his breath. Another jerky breath became a sob. She dropped the gun and covered her mouth. 

She pushed the horror of having killed another human being into a box inside her. That’s where she’d shoved the realization that Ben had killed her mother, that Sam Savino was her father by force of rape, of finding Silas nailed to that barn wall…it was all in there, about to explode. She couldn’t explode yet.

She grabbed the gun that was still warm and aimed at the base of the ring on the ceiling. The shot hit the corner of the metal and ended up inside the attic. Dust and debris floated down over her. She squinted and aimed again. The gun clicked.

“No, no, no.” She checked the chamber. It was empty. 

A sound from Ben’s direction sent her twisting around to face him. He’d slumped over. She dropped the gun and tried for the key. It was under the corner of the bed frame. She tried stretching, reaching, even sucking in air to bring it closer. The bed frame was also out of her reach. She tried using the gun, but was still five inches too short. She pulled herself up and held onto the rafters. The blood pressure eased. After a few moments, her eyes felt normal enough to search for a way out. It was dark and musty in the attic. Two bats flew erratically, probably frightened by the gunfire. 

She tugged at the base of one of the rings. It was still hot from being shot at. She shook the ring with her foot and tugged on it with her hand. Ben had picked the thickest, sturdiest beam to attach the hooks to. Her ankles were bleeding from her frantic movements. After a while, her arms were beginning to shake. She tried different positions, different ways to hold onto the beam. Eventually, she had to let go and hang again.