Hunted (34 page)

“I’m paranoid, but at least I might be prepared.” Not a victim, never again a victim, she told herself. The mantra she’d repeated so many times in the past year, she might start believing it at some point.

Darkness stared in from the lace-covered windows. The dining room was silent, shadows stretching and darkening the room, over the table, hiding the china cabinet and corner curio.

She glanced down the hallway to the other entrance of the kitchen. It was dark. The photographs hanging from the wall were black squares and rectangles. A faint glow slashed across the floor from the kitchen’s doorway at the end of the hallway. The door under the stairs was ajar.

Reaching out, she flicked on the hall light, her breath held. Shadows blinked away in the seemingly harsh light.

Had Suzy opened the closet? And for what? It was for storage mainly.

Taking a deep breath, she held the pepper spray at eye level and swung the door open.

Nothing. Taking another deep breath, she reached in and pulled the cord. A bare bulb shone on the old banker boxes, on the wooden shelves, the cedar-lined closet.

Lord. She was in Texas, for God’s sake. Not Prague, not Europe, not a big city modeling. She led a quiet, nonexistent life and was safe.
S-A-F-E.
Her attention was caught by the rows of photo albums. She reached a finger out and grazed it over them.

One day . . .

She glanced at the boxes on the shelf to the right of the albums and frowned.

Dust covered the boxes. A gray layer of dust. The shelves were likewise covered in dust.

All except the photo albums.

“Jackson probably just looked at the photos. No big deal. First thing tomorrow, call Dr. Stewart and schedule an appointment.” Heart still hammering, she pulled the light cord and backed out of the closet.

Her phone shrilled.

Morgan jumped, all but leaping out of her skin.

“God.” Pressing the keypad, she puffed out a breath and answered, “Hello?”

“Morgan?” Lincoln’s British accent was clipped as usual.

“Lincoln?” She felt her heart slow. “Thank God. I’ve been worried sick. Have you heard from Amy?”

“Morgan, where are you?” he asked instead.

Her stomach tingled with anxiety that something wasn’t right. Trying to keep things light, she said, “I’m standing just inside a storage closet under our stairs at the ranch, Lincoln. Where are you, or dare I ask?”

The easy banter of email was the easiest to fall back on. She wasn’t certain she wanted to hear what he had to say.

“Have you heard from Amy?” she asked.

“Is anyone there with you?” he asked.

She shut the door and turned toward the kitchen.

Creak . . .

Morgan took a deep breath. Just the house. Just the house.

“What’s just the house? Morgan, are you at the ranch alone?” he asked, and she realized she’d spoken aloud. His voice was edged, tense as she’d heard it before. Before when they were leaving, before when he’d killed, before when they were escaping . . . the Czech Republic, London, here . . .

Her heart kicked against her ribs even as her blood iced.

Morgan licked her lips. “I—uh—”

“Morgan, don’t fuck with me. Answer the bloody question.”

At the end of the hallway, she looked into the kitchen. The old dark wooden kitchen door stood open and back against the wall as it always had with a ladder-backed chair propped against it. The lamp over the stove cast an eerie soft light over the kitchen, the long farm table used as an island, the table in the nook. Outside the darkness seemed to press into the house.

“Morgan Olivia Gaelord.”

She grinned. “I didn’t know you knew my middle name.” Deep breath. She shoved a hand through her hair and chuckled, though it sounded far from amused even to herself. “Losing my freaking mind. Yes, I’m currently the only one here and awake. Suzy is at the carriage house, asleep.” Morgan pushed her glasses up her nose and walked to the kitchen window, scanning the darkened lawn, the carriage house rising up from the far side of the yard. All the windows still dark. “Jackson is on his way home from the airport and I’ve no idea where Gideon is. Probably dinkering with some computer.”

Turning, she set the pepper spray on the center island, knocking against the grilling utensils that hung from one side. Specially made blacksmith tines she’d ordered over the net for Jackson’s Christmas gift. He loved them. They didn’t break or bend, and
why
Suzy had to hang them from nails off the side of the damn table was beyond her. Every time Morgan walked by them, she managed to rake across the things.

Using her left hand, she opened the double-door fridge, heard Lincoln talking to someone in the background. The light from the refrigerator glared off the bottles of orange juice, organic milk and . . .

“Oh, Jesus,” she whispered.

“What? Morgan, I’m sending some police out to the ranch . . . ” The rest of what he said faded away.

There on the shelf was a bottle of absinthe. A bottle she’d seen too many times in the presence of Mikhail. Round, green and gold, it seemed to be the perfect frame for the almost glowing green liquor within. A green liquor that brought on hallucinations—a bite of the green fairy—an aphrodisiac.

Her heart slammed against her ribs, fear clawing to get out. All she could do was stare at the bottle placed in the middle of the top shelf.

“Come, you stupid girl. I’m trying to help you,” Dame said.

“No, I don’t want any.”

“It’ll make things easier,” Dame’s voice whispered . . .

“Drink up, Dusk, you’ll need the buffer this little fairy will give you,” Mikhail’s voice slithered as the bright green liquid sloshed into the glass.

But it hadn’t. She’d seen fangs, and red eyes. Too much, they’d said and laughed.

Her hand trembled, and goose bumps pricked her skin. She stood frozen.

“No. No. No,” she whispered.

“Morgan!” Lincoln’s voice pierced through her fear.

She was panting.

“Absinthe, Linc. There’s a bottle of absinthe in the refrigerator. Right there. Right there on the—”

Creak . . .

“Top—” She didn’t dare look away from the open fridge.

The air in the kitchen tightened, tears stung her eyes.

“Oh, God.” She didn’t dare look around. Didn’t dare.

“Morgan. Morgan, listen to me. Get out of the house. Get out of the house and to a police station! Now!” His voice whiplashed through the phone.

Morgan looked to her right, back toward the hallway, to the door that still stood against the wall.

“I think it’s too late for that, Lincoln,” she whispered.

Creak . . .

She knew. Knew someone was already in the house.

Her breath panted sharp in her lungs.

“Someone’s in the house,” she whispered, swallowing past the nausea that churned her stomach, and took a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she stood very still, took stock of the kitchen. Door to her right. But where was he . . . they?

Still. Stay very still.

Pepper spray was behind her on the center island.

She turned to the right to pick it up. It was gone. The table bare.

The bright light of the refrigerator cut across the empty table.

“This isn’t happening, it’s not happening. It’s not happening . . . ” It was the mantra she often used when she woke up from nightmares.

Then it worked.

Now it wasn’t.

Not so much as helping to stop the trembles. She faced the refrigerator. The bottle mocked her.

They’d found her.

“Morgan. Morgan, the police are on their way . . . ” Lincoln’s voice continued in her ear, but she barely heard him over the roar of her own blood.

Slowly, she turned to her left, reached in and grabbed a bottle of Tabasco sauce. Tabasco sauce? She almost laughed. But the bottle was sloped, almost to a point.

The door swung toward her.

The shadows behind the door from the nook shifted.

There he stood, dressed in black. Something glinted in his hand.

“Leave me alone,” she said, a tremor in her voice.

He smiled, a flash of white teeth in the shadows.

He lunged.

She screamed. “No!”

Morgan whirled, but he slammed into her, shoving her down the side of the center island. She felt a nick in her upper arm, the sting of whatever he shoved into her bloodstream.

Utensils clattered onto the floor. One of the tines raked her arm open, splitting the skin as she stumbled and fell. Another tine had fallen to the floor.

“Stupid bitch,” he said, slapping the phone from her as she tried to twist away, clawing at the floor.

She stabbed the bottle at his eye. He cursed and backhanded her, pain exploding behind her eye. She felt the metal end of a tine bite into her rib cage.

She fisted her hand on the metal handle and twisted up and around, even as he straddled her, holding her down.

“Let me go,” she bit out between her teeth.

He smiled at her. “Mikhail has plans for you, Dusk.” His hand grabbed her jaw. “I remember fucking you.”

Rage and fear crashed together.

The lights illuminated his squared face, the blond hair and brows. The cold blue eyes.

“Vescilly,” she whispered.

His chuckle grated across her terror.

Mikhail.

“No. No.”

He only nodded, his hand still holding her chin.

She yelled and bucked, twisted, bringing the tines up and straight into the soft left side of his neck. “Never!”

For a moment, his eyes met hers, his hands automatically letting go of her to reach up and jerk the long metal fork free.

As if in slow motion, she saw the gleam of blood on the coppery woven handle, saw it slither down the metal, run across his hand, drip onto her.

His eyes met hers, angry, disbelieving.

The world tilted, swam, narrowed.

She felt the warm splatter of blood across her, a roar filled her ears.

“Never again,” she muttered.

A body pressed hers into the floor, even as blackness closed around her.

Chapter 25

Lincoln stood in the aisle of the plane.

“Morgan!” he shouted into the phone.

He heard Tarver’s voice barking orders to the Ellis County sheriff’s office.

“Morgan!”

Nothing. The world on the other end of the phone was silent.

His heart beat against his lungs, shoving all the air out.

God. Please God, no.

“Morgan,” he said more softly.

In his mind, he saw her struggling, wondered who, Mikhail? Another messenger? One of Mikhail’s men?

Raking a hand through his hair, he sat, wishing he had another phone.

He didn’t want to disconnect this one. He couldn’t.

He might hear something . . . something . . . anything . . .

Blood raced, iced in his veins, even as it felt as if he were on fire. Fury beat hard and fast. At himself, at the nameless bastard at the other end of the line who dared to harm Morgan.

“Someone’s already in the house . . . ”
Then her scream. The clatter of the fucking phone. He’d heard a man’s voice. But was it just one? More? Did they already have her?

He stood and paced the aisle again, grabbing the leather captain seat as the plane dipped from turbulence.

Tarver disconnected and said, “Sheriff’s department is on its way and an ambulance. I figure, with Texas, we’ll also have to contend with their state boys or Rangers. Anyone else you want me to call?”

“Shadow,” Lincoln answered and tried to hear through the phone. Nothing. Not a single blessed sound.

It was silent as a bleeding tomb.

He rattled off the number. Tarver quickly gave Shadow, who was en route to Dallas via a rented car, the situation. Apparently Shadow wanted to speak with Lincoln, but he didn’t want to talk to anyone and merely shook his head.

How much fucking further could it be?

Tarver placed another call into his superiors.

Lincoln sat, cold inside, his stomach tight, his focus skewed.

“Who all knew where Morgan was?” Tarver asked him.

God, what if they had her now? Lincoln knew, knew that they’d find Amy’s body in much the same condition as Glenda’s. And the other missing woman in Orlando?

“By the way, Mikhail Jezek is still in Miami,” Tarver said softly.

“I. Want. Him,” Lincoln said, piercing his associate with a glare. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “I want that bastard.”

Tarver nodded. “You’ll get him. This one is too much. The girls are all linked to him. Stupid, really.”

“He’s egoistical. Figured he’d get away with it. No one bests Mikhail Jezek and makes him look like a buggering sod, which is what these ladies did when they escaped. Tarnished his name.” He still listened to the silent phone, noted he wasn’t disconnected as the ticker on the mobile was still counting the seconds.

“Again, someone tipped him off to the girls’ locations. Can you account for everyone on your team?” Tarver asked.

Lincoln’s immediate reaction was fury, but he’d heard her scream. Seen the blood splatters left in Amy’s apartment and seen the finished product with Glenda.

“I’d like to say yes, but then I’ve lost contact with all but Shadow,” he muttered. He cleared his throat. “Shadow I can account for. He’d have no reason to do this,” Lincoln muttered.

Still nothing on the other end of the mobile. “Bugger and blast! Why can’t I hear anything?”

“What of the others?” Tarver pressed.

Lincoln took a deep breath, tried to calm his racing heart, his twisted emotions, and find the way back to level, calm ground.

“The other two you could trust in a crunch. George Baskins and Becca—Rebecca Linsey.” He tried to remember where they both were. His brain wouldn’t wrap around it for a moment, then seemed to click into gear, sharpen, focus.

“Baskins is with a medical team, some research at Johns Hopkins, I believe. Got out about the time I did. I think Becca is working for some of your state boys. Though I can’t remember which ones.”

“ATF,” Tarver answered.

Lincoln glared at him. “Why did you ask, then?”