Novels 11 Adam Read online

  The shack was maybe ten by ten—too small, he thought. And then the headlamps found a large compound, and Daniel knew that he’d arrived.

  He stopped the Suburban and stared out at the clearing. A small square house rose from overgrown weeds on his left. Old gray boards hanging off the walls, half the roof missing, broken windows.

  A small hill rose ahead before meeting the forest. What looked to be an old rusted plow leaned into the brush at the base of the hill. Beyond, a rotting wood fence.

  Three thoughts crowded Daniel’s mind. The first was that neither the shack nor the house fit Eve’s profile.

  The second was that he was out in the open, lights blazing, in the crosshairs of anyone staring out of the forest.

  The third was that his chest was aching badly.

  He reached for the key, shut the engine off. The hum that had been his constant companion for the past seventeen hours was replaced by a soft ring in his ears. The clock read 8:13.

  Daniel turned off the lights. A half moon cast just enough light over the clearing for him to make out the house’s outline against the black forest. A quick glance at his cell confirmed that he was still out of coverage. Eve must have used a satellite phone.

  He sat with both hands on the wheel, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness. He’d considered countless scenarios, but stranded in the clearing now, none of them seemed to matter. Eve was already watching, waiting.

  Daniel had only two options. He could turn around, drive the half hour to cell coverage, and call the location in. Or he could search the compound and trust his instincts.

  Instincts that told him method killers like Eve depended on their compulsions to the point of addiction. Eve killed women on the new moon for reasons powerful enough to prevent him from killing Heather now. Whatever he had in mind, it wasn’t a straightforward killing spree.

  However unlikely to a logical way of thinking, there was a possibility that Eve had done all of this to serve as a warning, to show his mastery over the situation. That would fit his profile.

  Daniel pulled his weapon from its holster, chambered a round, and stepped out of the vehicle. He closed the door and stood by the front fender, searching. For what, he didn’t know. Movement. Sound. Anything to suggest a course of action.

  Crickets sang in the forest. The Suburban’s engine ticked loudly as it cooled. Otherwise the compound was quiet.

  He stepped into the brush on his right, intent on keeping the forest close to his back. In any other circumstance he would sweep around, keeping low, attempting to find an advantage through stealth or speed. But the idea of trying to get the upper hand on Eve after being led here seemed foolish.

  So he turned to his right and walked out into the middle of the compound, where he stopped. Still nothing. He held his gun in both hands, lifted halfway.

  “Heather!”

  His voice carried through the clearing, then dissipated into the trees. Daniel took three steps toward the house and yelled again, louder this time.

  “Heather! Can you hear me?”

  This time a faint cry drifted across the compound.

  Daniel jerked his gun up and sighted right, then left. It could have been a product of his imagination, that cry. Or an animal in the forest. An owl, or a . . .

  It came again, but he still couldn’t tell from which direction.

  “Heather!” He headed for the house, running in a low crouch, gun still in both hands but directed at the earth. He picked his way quickly over fallen branches, several rocks. The house’s door was missing. Just a gaping black mouth.

  Daniel pulled up against the wall, then spun in, gun extended. By the faint moonlight he could see that the place had been trashed long ago. Not Eve. None of this fit Eve.

  “Heather?” Softer.

  He stepped over several rusted paint cans and peered through a doorway on the right. Two shredded mattresses littered with empty tin cans lay on the floor, one in each corner. An old bedroom.

  Daniel was turning from the room when he saw the dark stain on the wall, just visible by moonlight. One word, splashed over the decaying wood. A name.

  Eve.

  He stared, mind spinning. Not the same style the killer used, but definitely the same name. Written here years ago.

  The killer had drawn him to a location linked to his past. His childhood or his teenage years. It was a hot night, but the room seemed to have cooled. Gooseflesh rippled up Daniel’s arms.

  For the first time in twenty-four hours, the fear raged through Daniel’s nerves. He felt himself gasp, felt his muscles quivering and his knees buckling.

  He reached out with both hands, searching for something to steady himself. The gun thudded to the floor. His right hand found a sharp edge on the doorjamb—a nail or a sliver sliced into the flesh at the base of his thumb.

  But the terror that swept through his senses blanketed the physical pain. He staggered, felt the skin on his hand tear, caught himself with a quick step forward.

  And then the fear passed, leaving him trembling in the chilled air.

  He stood and tried to settle his mind. The gun sat two feet to his right, and he bent for it. It occurred to him then, as he stood back up, that his breath fogged the air.

  The chill he felt wasn’t a matter of nerves. The temperature had fallen drastically. How was that possible?

  Another cry reached his ears. With a parting glance at the stain that spelled Eve’s name, Daniel ran from the house, breathing steady now. The onslaught of fear and its subsequent easing left him more cautious of his own mind than of Eve. He couldn’t live with whatever battered his emotions with such savagery.

  Facing Eve was a preferable prospect. The air was hot.

  A cry cut the night, this time clearly from his left. The direction of the hill. He sprinted through the tall grass, nearly spilling when his foot landed on something hidden in the weeds. Pain spread up his leg, but he ignored it and ran across the road.

  Turned to the left and slowed to a quick walk around the base of the rise.

  “Heather!”

  No cry this time. But he didn’t need one to guide him, because rounding the hill, he saw the black hole that led into the ground.

  Daniel pulled up hard, panting. Thick timbers framed a wood door propped halfway open. A root cellar.

  Images of the other root cellars where Eve had killed his victims skipped through his mind. Missing pieces that made up Eve’s puzzle settled into place. The child who’d become a serial killer had returned home.

  Daniel walked up to the door, gun tight in his bloodied palm. “Heather?”

  A soft whimper from inside.

  He was beside the doorway now, eyes straining into a dull, flickering glow. He knew that entering the cellar could not end well for him, but he also knew that not entering could not end well for Heather.

  Daniel stepped past the doorway into the root cellar.

  Shifting flame light moved shadows over large railroad ties that supported the sagging ceiling. The large cellar smelled of dead rats and creosote. Quick breathing echoed softly. Another whimper.

  Daniel jerked his eyes from side to side, looking for Heather. A table to his right, piles of debris, a couple of fallen timbers. But the sound was directionless.

  He took two steps and spun back.

  Heather sat in a metal chair, arms bound behind her back, ankles strapped to the legs with duct tape. Shivering.

  There was a bag over her head.

  No sign of Eve.

  “Heather . . .” He crossed the dirt floor in four long steps. “I’m here. It’s Daniel. It’s okay, I’m here now.” He whispered quickly, searching for the killer.

  They had to get out, he knew that as clearly as he knew how unlikely it was. He glanced back at the entryway. Still clear. He started to tug at the tape around her ankle, but the going was slowed by his grip on the gun. He couldn’t release the gun.

  Heather was still shaking, hyperventilating. She’d cried out more than once
, why now so silent?

  “It’s okay, Heather. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  The tape came free and he attacked the second leg.

  “Forgive me.” Emotion rose through his chest. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry . . .”

  He got the second leg free, but she made no move to stand. Daniel stood and faced the inevitable. When he pulled the bag from her head, he would discover if she’d been spared the disease.

  He hesitated a beat, not sure he could face the answer. Then he reached out, took the seam of the bag in his left hand, and pulled it off her head.

  Heather’s hair was matted with sweat. What was left of her mascara smeared flushed cheeks. Mucus stained her upper lip. Duct tape sealed her mouth.

  But the terrified eyes that frantically searched his were clear of the disease. She’d been spared.

  A quick check of the doorway assured him they were still in the clear. “We have to go! We have to get out of here.”

  Her hands were still bound to each other and her lips taped shut, but she was freed from the chair. They didn’t have time to untie the knots behind her back.

  He started to pull her up, glancing again over his shoulder. “Come on, please, we have to get out of here.”

  Her eyes rolled to the right and left, bright with fear. She was trying to tell him something. He released her and grabbed the edge of the tape.

  It was then, while Daniel’s hand was on the tape, that Eve spoke. Not from the doorway behind them, but from the shadows beyond the chair.

  “Put the gun down.”

  Daniel jerked up and stared at a man dressed in dungarees and a plaid flannel shirt, holding a gun on Heather. He’d stepped from the darkness, but his face was still in shadows, giving him the appearance of having no eyes.

  For several long breaths Daniel stood rooted to the ground. The moment had taken him off guard. Yet here it was.

  He should have known the duct tape was a recent addition, applied only moments earlier.

  He dropped the gun and stood back.

  Then the man stepped from the shadows behind Heather and looked into Daniel’s eyes.

  “Hello, Adam.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  EVE REPLACED THE BAG over Heather’s head before hauling her from the root cellar, but not before turning her around to see Daniel.

  Eve had hogtied Daniel behind her back, then chained him to one of the railroad ties that rose along the wall. Duct tape ran over his mouth and around his head several times. He lay on his side, eyes shifting between Heather and the man behind her.

  Eve hadn’t allowed her to see his face. Something that could bode well for her.

  Daniel, on the other hand, was staring at Eve now.

  Her hands were still tied, otherwise she would have put up a fight here and now, to hell with consequences. The tape was still across her face, otherwise she would have cried out her love for the man on the floor. Demanded that Eve take her instead of Daniel.

  “I’ll give you a drink when I get back,” Eve said to Daniel.

  Then he pulled the bag over her head, turned her around, and forced her from the root cellar.

  The hot night air smothered her. She had no idea where they were, only that it was a long way from Los Angeles—a day’s drive. She’d seen the inside of the root cellar but nothing more.

  Eve guided her over uneven ground for a hundred paces, then stopped her.

  “Please relieve yourself,” he said.

  She was so far removed from shame in the wake of her ordeal that she gratefully did so with his help.

  They walked a short way before stopping again. He opened a sliding van door and nudged her inside. He’d never been rough with her. Never shoved or yanked her. Only his initial assault on her had required any force at all.

  Even in his speech, Eve struck her as an intelligent, cautious man who was motivated by ideology rather than violence. And it was through those few spoken words that she’d learned more about Eve than a year of obsession had taught her.

  She lay down on the van’s carpeted floor. The door slammed shut. She lay in silence for thirty seconds before hearing the growl of another engine.

  He was moving another car. Daniel’s.

  She didn’t know tear ducts were capable of producing the volume she’d wept over the past two days. None of her anguish had moved the man who’d taken her. He felt no sorrow, but neither did he relish their pain, she thought.

  The gravel crunched under his feet as he approached. He climbed into the car, started the engine. The van moved through a turn, then sped up.

  Heather wasn’t sure why he’d gone to so much trouble to bring her all this way if his objective was Daniel all along. An obsessive mind often followed its own convoluted reasoning, Daniel often said. It was guided by principles obvious only to the faithful. Yet another way in which he connected killers and religious fanatics.

  Maybe Eve wanted Daniel in the root cellar for this reason. She’d studied the room during hours of waiting. Someone had carved Eve’s Holy Coven on each overhead beam, facing the back wall. Rusted torch rings were fixed to the vertical railroad ties.

  But it was the table along the near wall that said more about the room’s purpose than anything. Holes had been drilled in each corner, and from these holes hung leather restraining straps. The pitted surface was stained with dark blotches. She’d stared at the table and imagined animals tied down and slaughtered. She’d imagined worse, but then refused to dwell on it.

  They drove for an hour, and Heather let her mind wonder what would happen to Daniel. She lay on her side and wept at the thoughts.

  Slowly the rumbling under her right ear called her to exhaustion, and she embraced a deep, numbing sleep.

  THE NEXT TIME HEATHER opened her eyes, light seeped through the neck of the bag over her head. She’d slept through the night and part of the next day.

  The van wasn’t moving.

  Heather lifted her head and listened. She could hear Eve in the front seat, eating something. A plastic wrapper being torn, then another bite. Then a long drink. He was having a candy bar with a soft drink, she thought. Cherry Coke.

  No other sounds that she could hear. She lay her head back down. But her rest lasted less than a minute before Eve’s door squeaked and he climbed out. The van door slid open.

  “Would you like to relieve yourself?”

  She sat up with his help. Scooted to the edge of the van, swung her legs down, and stood. He eased her head away from the roof and guided her along a hard surface. A sidewalk or street.

  They entered a room that smelled like a freshly cleaned bathroom. They were at a rest stop?

  Eve asked her to sit in a corner, then taped her hands to a cold pipe and washed up in a sink.

  “Two things you should know. The disease takes three days to set in. If the FBI gets lucky and finds us before those three days have passed, I’ll kill him before they arrive.”

  A beat, then he spoke again. “Don’t try to out think me. It’ll only get more people killed. Letting you go is not a mistake unless you make it one. For you, for Daniel.”

  Then he left.

  It took her several minutes to realize that he really wasn’t coming back. He’d left her alone in a rest stop bathroom to be found by the next traveler!

  She tried to free herself, but the tape job proved too secure. She tried to scream through the muzzle, but the strain on her vocal cords wore them raw. So she settled down and prayed the driver of the next vehicle to pull in would be a man with a burning bladder.

  She didn’t have long to wait. A man, a teenager by the sound of it, haltingly hammering out the lyrics to a rap song she didn’t recognize opened the door. She normally hated rap. But in that moment rap became the sweetest-sounding music she’d ever heard.

  The would-be rapper’s lyrics caught in his throat as he shuffled into the bathroom.

  But instead of rushing up to free her, the boy fled. Heather screamed into the tape after him, but he w
as gone. She’d never considered what effect the image of a bound and gagged woman in a men’s restroom might have on the casual passerby.

  Pounding feet washed away her fears. The boy had gone for help, and it was coming fast.

  “Ma’am? You okay?”

  She gave the stupid question a stupid, muffled cry.

  Then hands were on her arms, ripping away the tape. The bag lifted off, and Heather stared at a large, dark-skinned man who looked like he might have been a running back in college.

  “You okay, ma’am?”

  The man eased the tape off her mouth.

  “Do I look okay?” She was frantic to be free, completely unbound. “Untie me . . . Get this stuff off me!”

  Tears flooded her eyes and she started to cry, as much from relief as anything. But her own rescue was poisoned by the knowledge that Eve was on his way back to Daniel.

  “Get this stuff off me!”

  “Tyrone!” the man snapped.

  The man’s son, presumably the rapper, shrugged off his shock, yanked out a pocketknife, and made quick work of the tape that bound her wrists.

  They had to help her to her feet. She stared at her hands, calming.

  “Thank you. Thank you, thank you!” She threw her arms around Tyrone and kissed his face without restraint. “Thank you, thank you.” She hugged the running back tight.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  Heather stepped back. Sniffed. Wiped her nose and mouth.

  “You have a cell phone, Tyrone?”

  He fished an iPhone from his pocket and handed it to her.

  “Where are we?”

  “Just outside Trinidad,” the man said. “Colorado. I-25.”

  She punched the number in with an unsteady hand and looked up at the man, who was still watching her. “Thank you.” She touched his arm. “Thank you so much.”

  A twisted grin nudged his lips, and he dipped his head.

  Brit’s voice filled the phone. “Hello?”

  “Brit?” She knew it was him, but she wanted to hear him say it.

  “This is Brit Holman. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Heather, Brit.”

  “Heather?”

  “It’s Heather—”