Cheated By Death (32 page)

He took the video camera off the tripod,
rewound the tape. He pressed play, shoved the previewer under
Richard’s nose. “That’s what I’m gonna do to your woman—before I
off her.”

Richard swung his head aside, but Ray grabbed
a hank of his hair.

“You sonuvabitch. You goddamn sonuvabitch.”
Richard’s voice was a harsh whisper.

Ray laughed. “I haven’t even started
yet.”

Richard sagged, pulling the door—and me—off
balance.

Ray went into the tool crib, grabbed more
cable ties, went back to Patty’s still form, bound her hands behind
her back, then her feet.

I looked away—impotent rage like acid on my
soul—and noticed the phone. Hope surged. If he planned to leave
us—to go after Brenda—somehow I’d get to it. Somehow I’d—

He stepped back into my line of vision,
noticed what I was staring at. He pivoted, yanked the phone wire
from the wall. “Does that spoil your plans, big brother?”

I ground my teeth to keep from answering, and
Ray laughed at my stifled fury.

“I got a lot to do before the day is done,”
he said.

Before the supply house workers came back the
next morning, I thought. Had he thought through how he’d dispose of
three bodies? Or didn’t it matter?

Ray went back to the bench, carefully
rewrapping all but one of his knives. He grabbed his jacket from a
nail in a support stud, and donned it, shoved the deadly bundle
into the right pocket. He walked around me and stood in front of
Richard. Metal chinked. I craned my neck. Ray pocketed Richard’s
keys. Knife poised at face level, he leaned close to my
brother.

“When I come back, I’ll bring you a souvenir.
How about yer old lady’s heart?”

“If you hurt her, I swear I’ll kill you,”
Richard grated. I’d never heard such murderous fury.

Ray’s laughter echoed in the cavernous room.
He raised the knife, slashed Richard’s face. My brother fell back
with a yelp, pushing me into the crib, the door clanging on its
metal frame. I stumbled back, regaining my balance.

“That’s just a taste,” Ray said, wiping the
bloodied knife on the back of his thigh, staining his jeans. He
grabbed the rifle and the camcorder from the bench and strode off
into the darkness, his footfalls echoing hollowly before
fading.

“Did he cut you?” I asked.

Richard was shaking. “My chin.”

“Bad?”

“Bad enough,” he said, head thrashing to his
left, apparently trying to staunch the flow of blood on his
shoulder.

I glanced at the clock—one thirteen—and
yanked at the bindings on my wrists.

There was no way out. No way.

Unless . . . .

“Patty? Patty can you hear me?” I called.
“Patty!”

Somewhere behind me I heard movement and
quiet sniffling.

“Patty. Get up. Now! You’ve got to help us.
Do you hear me?” I said, venom in my voice.

“Don’t be so goddamned hard on her,” Richard
growled.

“If you wanna save Brenda, Patty’s our only
hope. Patty!” I tried again.

She wormed her way to her knees. “What?”

“Get over here. Now!”

“He hurt me. God—he hurt me.”

“I know,” I said more kindly, trying to level
my voice. “Patty, Ray’s going to kill Brenda and Maggie if we don’t
stop him. Please, please help us get out of here.”

She sidled to the support beam, shimmied her
bound hands past her backside, pulled her legs through, then pushed
herself onto unsteady feet. “Wha—wha’d you want me to do?”

“Get the tin snips. Here, in the tool
crib.”

Pale and shaky, she had to hop to the
workbench, then slumped against it to catch her breath. The muscles
in my neck went into spasms, but I couldn’t tear my gaze from her.
Pushing off again, she hobbled forward, crashed into Richard,
burying her head against his shoulder.

“Patty, don’t,” he whispered.

I strained to see behind me. She
straightened, raised her hands to gently caress his face, and
looked him in the eye. “I’d do anything for you, Richard.
Anything.”

“Please, get the tin snips,” he said.

She gazed into his eyes, a tear sliding down
her cheek. Then she leaned forward, kissing him on the mouth.

And he let her.

“Patty, please!” I begged.

She pulled away, her lips trembling, a smear
of Richard’s blood on her chin. Then she shouldered past me, and
awkwardly hopped into the crib. “Where?” she asked, voice hard.

“Above you,” I said. “Hanging from the
pegboard.”

Patty pulled uselessly at the bindings on her
wrists.

“How can I—?”

“Pull out a drawer, stand on it!”

She flexed her hands, wincing at the pain
from her broken finger, and tried to yank open a drawer, became
wedged between it and the narrow bench behind her. “I can’t,” she
whimpered.

“Yes, you can,” Richard said.

She drew in a ragged breath, moved aside,
grasped the metal pull. The drawer jerked forward, toppled under
its own weight, its contents clattering on the concrete floor.

The sweep hand on the clock finished another
circuit.

Four minutes.

Patty climbed onto the overturned drawer,
wood splintering under her bare feet. She raised her elbows to
chest level, cried out in pain. She’d been tied up too long.

“Use the yard stick—to your right. You can
knock it down with the yard stick,” I told her.

She groped for the long slender ruler. Her
short skirt didn’t hide the bruises on her blood-streaked thighs. I
looked away. If I hadn’t goaded Ray, if she hadn’t called him off
me—

Biting her lip, Patty scraped the ruler
across the pegboard, hitting the hanging tools.

“To your left. Higher,” I told her.

She batted at the wall. “This’ll never work!
I can’t do it. I can’t!”

“You can, Patty. I know you can,” Richard
said.

Another minute. Five down.

Tools rained onto the floor, clunking dully.
The heavy tin snips tumbled forward, smacking her shoulder. She
caught them, dropping the stick.

“You've got it! Fantastic!” I cheered. “Come
on, Patty. Hurry!”

Grasping them clumsily, Patty shuffle-hopped
closer to us. Now if she could just use them without slicing off
our fingers.

She pressed close to the chain link door,
fumbling for a better hold on the snips. “What if I cut you?”

“You won’t,” Richard said.

“Just go slow,” I warned.

I couldn’t see her hands as she maneuvered
the snips into place. Her cold skin touched mine.

“Ready?” she said.

“Go for it,” I said, and balled my fists.

She drew the pincers shut, wincing with
effort, tried again, hacking at the chain link. Her breath caught
as her broken finger brushed mine. Chink went the snipped
metal.

“Keep going,” I encouraged her.

She was shaking with effort, quietly sobbing,
I realized, pain, misery and fear taking its toll. Another chink
and I pitched forward from the sudden release—but I was only free
of the chain link. My hands and feet were still bound, although now
I could at least twist around.

“Hold it. Open them up, don’t close them ‘til
I tell you.” I fumbled the electrical tie into position. “Okay,
cut.”

She closed the snips.

Metal sliced skin.

I jumped.

“Jesus!”

Patty backed off. “Ohmigod! Did I hurt
you?”

I bit my lip to keep from swearing.

“Jeff?” Richard asked, anxious.

“Again,” I told her.

“No,” she cried.

“Patty we’re wasting time. Do it!”

She pressed closer, jabbing my back with the
snip’s sharp tips, let me maneuver the tie on my wrist into
position. “Do it.”

She lopped away, and my hands came loose. I
flexed them and yanked the snips from her and freed my feet, then I
cut her hands loose. “You did great, baby sister,” I said, brushed
a kiss on her cheek, then went for Richard’s bindings.

It had been ten minutes since Ray left.

Richard rubbed the circulation back into his
hands. Blood still oozed down his chin. “Let’s get the hell out of
here,” he said.

“Show us the way,” I told Patty, grabbing her
arm and hauling her along the painted walkway.

Richard caught up, and we dragged Patty
between us, running for the exit.

CHAPTER

23

We burst through the building’s unlocked double doors
into cold fresh air and found Richard’s Lincoln gone. Panting, he
and I stared at one another.

“Where’s the nearest phone?” I asked
Patty.

“I don’t know,” she cried.

“We could break into one of the offices,”
Richard said.

“It won’t do any good,” Patty said. “Ray
messed with the system last night. No outgoing calls. He said it
was insurance.”

“Christ, everything in the area’s closed.
We’re at least half a mile from anywhere. There’re no
houses—nothing!” Richard said.

“Why can’t we just take my car?” Patty
asked.

“Have you got keys?” I asked.

“Ray took them. But there’s an extra ignition
key in the front left wheel well. Daddy made me put it there ’cause
I kept locking myself out.”

I sprinted to the car, knelt on the tarmac,
pawing behind the tire, and found a little plastic box attached to
the firewall.

“Thank you, Chet. Get in!” I called.

Richard helped Patty into the back seat. I
jumped in the driver’s side, started the car, tires squealing as I
hit the gas.

“Stop at the first pay phone,” Richard said.
“We gotta let the cops know what’s happening.”

“He’s got a ten-minute head start, but they
could still get to the house in plenty of time,” I said.

Did I believe it?

I had no intuitive assurances. Nothing but
fear.

We roared onto Transit Road, scanning for a
pay phone.

“There.” Richard pointed at a strip mall up
the next block.

The car jumped the curb. I stomped on the
brakes. The seat belts locked, and stopped Richard from sailing
through the windshield, but sent Patty slamming into the back of my
seat. She howled as Richard jerked open the door and spilled from
the car.

Patty pulled herself up, her face only inches
from mine. “He really loves Brenda, doesn’t he?” she asked, gazing
after Richard.

‘Of course he does!’ I wanted to yell, but
seeing her swollen face, smeared make-up and torn clothes—a
testament to what she’d endured—made me soften my voice.

“Yeah, he does.”

“Maybe,” she said, her voice childlike,
“maybe one day somebody will love me like that.”

Guilt washed over me. She was my sister, and
I hadn’t protected her. Yet she’d saved me from Ray’s lethal
hands—and at a terrible cost.

I tore my gaze away and honked the horn. We
were losing precious time.

Richard hung up, jumped back in the car,
slammed the door and punched the dash. “Go!”

Shoving the car in gear, I wheeled back into
traffic, just missing a pick up, and was rewarded with a one-finger
salute.

“Are they gonna meet us?” I asked.

“I didn’t hang around to find out. I gave
them the address—told them we were on our way. Then I called the
house. There was no answer.”

Patty patted Richard’s shoulder. “It’ll be
okay.”

I glanced over to see his worried gaze meet
hers—and couldn’t identify the mingled emotions in his expression.
He reached back to squeeze her hand.

I turned my attention back to the road.

Thank God traffic was light. I drove like a
maniac, running red lights, careening around other vehicles, and
not once did I see a cop lying in wait for speeders.

“Where the hell are the cops when you need
them?” Richard grated, echoing my thoughts.

“It’s Sunday—they’re all watching the Bills
on TV.”

The dashboard’s digital clock read one thirty
three. It had been twenty minutes since Ray left us.

The cops will get there in time, I told
myself. Maggie and Brenda will be safe. And they’re not alone.
There’s a guard at the end of the driveway, goddamn it. There was
no way Ray could get through those kinds of defenses.

Yeah, a guard. A pro . . . who probably made
a buck or two over minimum wage. What the hell were we thinking
leaving Brenda and Maggie alone?

One thirty eight p.m.

Twenty-five minutes down.

Folded into the Mustang’s cramped interior,
Richard had little room to fidget, yet he couldn’t seem to keep
still, his right hand absently pounded the dash. A horn blasted as
I turned onto Main Street. I cut off a Lexus and zipped between a
Jeep Cherokee and a Stratus, looking for my next break.

“Come on,” Richard urged.

“I’m doing the best I can.”

“I know. It’s just—”

“Don’t torture yourself,” I said, taking in
his grim expression. “You’re not responsible for freaks who—”

“But I am. My God, Jean Newcomb’s dead. Ray
tried to kill you, he raped Patty, and now—”

“We’ll get there.” I wanted to say more, to
reassure him, but how could I when I couldn’t reassure myself?

Fists clenching the steering wheel, I ran the
red light at LeBrun, took the corner and gunned the engine.

I broke into a cold sweat when I saw no swarm
of cop cars surrounding Richard's house—just the Amherst Security
cruiser stationed at the end of the driveway, the guard still
behind the wheel. Richard’s silver Lincoln was parked half on the
grass, half on the sidewalk—with the driver’s door open.

Where the
hell
were the cops?

I jammed on the brakes, slammed the car in
park, left it running in the street and bolted for the rent-a-cop.
I yanked open the car door, ready to ream him a new asshole, and
saw the flood of scarlet staining his uniform, his throat a jagged
mess, the microphone still clutched in his hand, its cord
dangling.

I hitched a breath, backed up a step. “He’s
dead,” I yelled.

“Stay here,” Richard told Patty.