Page 29

TWENTY-NINE

S amantha scrambled backward, across wood beams. Irregular grain that dug into her palms. She reached the wall and sat up with her back to it. Breathing hard. Every ache and bruise she had decided to make itself known then.

She looked around, forcing her gaze from darting about to settling enough she could catalog the room around her. A cabin. Blinds and curtains on the couple windows pulled shut to create near darkness while the afternoon sun blazed down outside behind the covering of clouds.

The air was close, thick on this muggy day where the clouds hung low and the air seemed heavy with moisture—humid for here, not so humid compared to a lot of places. Soon enough, a weather system from the north would sweep down across the mountains, pushing out the Pacific heat. Bringing relief from the high temperatures and humidity.

Lightning strikes, probably thunder, too.

Maybe lightning would strike him while he was outside. But then, she would be stuck in here where no one knew how to find her and she would die of starvation or some other thing before some hiker found her. Probably years from now.

Samantha heard the whimper escape her lips.

She forced out a choppy breath, carrying yet more of a sob with it.

She squeezed her eyes shut for the…however many times she’d done it. Thinking over what happened. Those few seconds when the unimaginable happened and she watched Deerdan…

Samantha sucked in another breath.

The maintenance guy, or so she’d thought. Now, she knew the curly hair had been a wig. The mustache was also stick on, along with a set of glasses with thick rims. Overalls and a nametag. He had to have had help because no one had questioned his entry into the police department. She could hardly believe it, but then who’d be expecting a wanted criminal to walk in the front door of their office?

Certainly not any cop she knew of.

Samantha took stock of herself in a disconnected sort of way—bending her feet, straightening and flexing her toes. Her hips were bruised but she could walk. He’d shoved her in here, making her walk all the way. At gunpoint.

She shuddered, and sweat rolled down her temples. She lifted her shoulder and wiped it against her hairline, which only made her think of Julio and his dislocated shoulder. She’d been on her way to the briefing, where she’d have seen him for the first time since they were loaded into separate ambulances.

They’d texted, but she’d wanted to get a look at him for herself.

Sergeant Deerdan had waylaid her and Romeo, talking about the case and how they’d sent her sister somewhere safe. When the conversation shifted to how she was doing, Romeo had excused himself. She and the sergeant had their personal conversation. Something she hadn’t been expecting when she joined Intelligence, but she appreciated it nonetheless.

And then…

Her next breath caught in her throat.

Deerdan had shifted to move aside so the maintenance guy could get by them. He’d drawn a knife and slammed it into her stomach, pulling it out as fast as he’d shoved it in. She’d stiffened, shock on her face that probably mirrored the shock on Samantha’s at watching it—but without the colossal pain of being stabbed in the abdomen by a six-inch blade in a police station.

Cameras.

Why had no one come running?

She could think it through now and conclude that none of it made sense. At the time, she’d barely had a second to think.

Even then, it wasn’t enough.

He’d swung around, hit her with a stun gun, and she’d blacked out right around when he dumped her over his shoulder. There had been a white van, probably his, just inside the motor pool. Not many others around—because who would steal a car from the police? Security cameras, just in case.

Why had no one come running?

Okay, now she’d come full circle again. She was losing strength, and soon enough she would lose consciousness again. She could feel the fatigue creep at the edge of her awareness, snarling like a lion in a cage. Waiting to pounce.

She couldn’t be out of it.

Samantha had no idea what he would do to her while she was unconscious.

Her mind could come up with all kinds of horrible scenarios, things she’d seen. Cases she’d worked. Gruesome deaths. People tortured and then murdered.

Her body flushed with cold, even though she was still sweating in the stifling heat.

A wide swath of sunlight blinded her as the front door to the cabin swung open, sending shards of glass into her head—at least, that was what the pain felt like. She winced against the impact. He slammed the door shut, rattling the whole cabin, but it bounced back a couple of inches and remained open.

She’d barely been able to make out the place in the bright light, but she had spotted a huge ancient refrigerator. Some furniture, but not much. He’d dumped her beside a bed. She reached out with her bound hands now and touched the ragged blanket on top of a bare mattress.

Samantha shuddered.

He walked toward her, a shadow in the darkness silhouetted by the strip of light where the door was still open a little. Her eyes still pulsed with flashes of light. He thought he was going to set the tone because he was in control.

So Samantha lifted her chin. Whether he could see her or not didn’t matter. She needed to feel at least a smidgen in control of what was happening around her. “Hello, Walter.”

She heard his low chuckle.

A disguise. A plan. “That was a risky move, going into the police station when you already assaulted an officer once.”

“Didn’t you hear? You started that fight. I was just defending myself.”

“Is that what you told Marianne? That she started it.”

In his mind, a guy like him could justify the fact beat he his wife and did who-knew-what to her. Unlike someone with no conscience, he believed he had every right to keep his wife in line—he thought he had to. And she should respect him and show it with every move she made.

Samantha pulled in her rambling thoughts. “I guess she deserved it.”

“And so do you.” He reached over and ran his finger down her cheek.

She bit the inside of her lip.

Could she get out the open door? She’d have to subdue him, but she was pretty sure she could run afterward. Assuming he didn’t catch up to her and catch her again. After that, things would probably get worse.

“Did you kill Marianne?” Samantha said, keeping her voice steady. She had to ask—she needed to know what happened to the woman she’d been trying to help.

His low chuckle rumbled in front of her, far too close. She couldn’t see his face, so maybe he couldn’t see hers.

She looked around for something to use to subdue him. She had no gun, no shoes, and no watch. No badge, no backup, no phone or radio. No way out.

A glint on the floor caught her attention, a tiny flash of…something.

“You’ll find out what happened to her.”

When he did the same to Samantha? She needed a different line of questioning, so she could use the time with him talking to figure a way out of this. So she said, “You went to a lot of trouble just to grab me. Maybe you should’ve killed me like you killed my sergeant. That’s what you wanted to do on the street.”

“A moment of weakness that won’t happen again, I assure you.”

So this was going to be cold and calculated? Great. “How did you get into the PD without anyone realizing who you were?”

“An arrangement. Not that I care what he wanted. It was a means to an end.”

“What do you mean?”

He exhaled, which sounded a little like a chuckle. “A favor. He needed something taken in, I needed to take something out. An exchange, like the last time.”

Someone wanted something taken into the PD. “Did you plant a device?” Was the police department going to explode? She had to warn someone!

“You think there was only one?” He wheezed, as though he thought that was so amusing.

“Who is he?” They’d thought it might be Walter at one point. “You applied to the fire department.” Twelve years ago—that’s what Tennet had told them. “You know him? Is he a firefighter?”

More laughter.

“You know who the arsonist is! Tell me!” She could barely think the desperation rang so loudly in her head. “Where did you meet him? Who is he?”

“You think this is an interrogation? I don’t see why you need to know since there’s nothing you can do about it before you die. He’s all nothing can stop my plan. And, it’s God’s will. ” Walter snorted. “Religious nut. Warping his beliefs because he wants to burn it all down.”

“Like a guy who beats his wife and believes it’s justified?” Pride was Walter’s religion.

His hand came out of nowhere. His open palm cracked across her cheek, forcing her head to the side while the pain blasted like a firework. Or a gunshot.

She squeezed her eyes shut, her face turned away from him.

Walter got up. She heard the clink of a chain. Before she even moved, he had it secured to the ties around her wrist.

She heard him walk away, and then the front door of the cabin shut.

Samantha tugged on the chain, the other end secured to the metal corner post of the bed, on the floor. Tears gathered in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks. The raw one stung. All she could think was…how many times had he chained Marianne on the floor by the bed?

This monster knew who the arsonist was.

He knew what their foe had planned. And if he went through with it, people at the police department could die. Maybe lots of them.

Samantha looked at the floor again, searching for the thing she’d seen. Why she fixated so hard on it right then, she wasn’t sure. But then, she had no power here. No ability to save herself or the officers she worked with from dying. What she could do was hold herself together…while tears rolled down her face and her heart felt like it was breaking all over again.

How was she supposed to get out of this?

Her fingers found the slight difference, a raised bit between two wood planks. Ignoring a splinter that embedded itself in her finger, she pried out something tiny. She couldn’t even see what it was.

The chain secured to her wrists clinked.

She lifted the tiny thing and found a chain attached to it—delicate like a necklace—that ran through her fingers. She held the now warm metal in the palm of one hand and moved her finger over it like she was reading braille.

A cross. On a chain, a necklace.

Marianne.

She’d been a believer.

Marianne had held out hope that God would save her. That she would be rescued from the situation she was in, even though Samantha had repeatedly asked her to testify against Walter.

She’d trusted God.

What had Marianne been thinking at the end? Had she kept her faith or fallen to despair? Sergeant Deerdan—dead as well because of Walter. Like Samantha would be soon enough.

Because God had abandoned them.