Authors: Cheyenne McCray
She looked up when she heard the sound of an engine and was surprised to see a black car coming toward her on the dirt road leading to the old building.
Rain came down harder now so she jogged to her Mustang and opened the driver’s side door. She leaned in and set her camera on the passenger seat. She straightened and waited for the car and saw that it was the black sports car she’d seen at the gas station. It had windows tinted so darkly that it was impossible to see anything but the driver, who she had yet to identify.
She frowned when the car was close enough that she recognized the man behind the wheel. It was the man she’d seen Phoebe kissing a few days ago. And it had to be the same guy from the gas station who’d had his back to her—she recognized the ball cap.
With her hand resting on the open door of her car, she paused as the guy parked directly behind her Mustang and got out of his vehicle. He walked toward her, his hands in the pocket of the leather jacket he was wearing. His hair was rapidly getting as wet as hers. She pushed a damp lock of her own hair behind her ear.
For some reason something strange twisted in her belly at his expression. A sick kind of feeling.
She put on a smile as he neared her. “Hi,” she said.
He scowled and her heart started to pound faster. She felt the urge to hurry into her car and get the hell out of there. She took a step and he pulled something out of his pocket.
A gun.
Chapter 13
Jessie’s breath caught in her throat and terror ripped through her like a blade. “What do you want?” Her voice shook as she spoke. “You can have anything I have. Anything you want.”
He stopped a few feet away from her. “I want you dead.”
“Dead?” She gripped the door to her car. “Why would you want me dead? I don’t even know you.”
“That doesn’t matter.” His smile was slow and cold. “I know who you are and you need to be gone.”
She swallowed, trying to hold back her fear long enough to think of a way out of this. “I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t.” His gaze flicked past her then returned to meet hers. “I’m the one who shot at you yesterday.”
Ice flowed through her veins. “Why?”
He ignored her. “I have a much better place for you to die. Out of the way, and not like anyone will find you soon. If ever.”
Her eyes widened. “Please tell me why.”
He looked over his shoulder at the car. “Do you want to let her know who it is, sweetheart?”
A heartbeat later, the rear door of the car opened and a woman stepped out.
“Phoebe.” The woman’s name almost stuck in Jessie’s throat.
“You little bitch. I told you that you would pay.” With a glare, Phoebe started walking toward Jessie. Rain pasted Phoebe’s blonde hair to her head. “You screwed everything up. Now we have to fix things.”
Phoebe didn’t have to tell her what she meant.
Zane. She wanted Zane back and she thought killing Jessie would make him go to her.
“Now Ed is going to have to take care of you.” Phoebe stopped beside the man she called Ed. “Zane will come back to me when they find your body. I’ll be there to comfort him.”
The man looked at Jessie again and smiled. “Once Phoebe marries him, he’ll eventually die. He might even get bitten by a rattlesnake that
somehow
gets into the house.”
Zane.
Not Zane.
“And then the ranch will be mine,” Phoebe said with a devious smile.
It came to Jessie then. “That’s what happened to the other rancher you married.”
“You’re pretty smart,” Phoebe laughed. “For a soon to be dead woman.”
“You’re Phoebe’s boyfriend.” She straightened as a thought came to her. Maybe this would work. “I took pictures of the two of you the day I came over to photograph Phoebe’s home. You were on your back patio.”
Phoebe’s features froze but Ed’s expression didn’t change.
“So?” he said. “What difference would that make?”
“They’ll suspect you.” She hoped Phoebe and Ed would get scared enough to not kill her. “The cops will be all over it.”
Phoebe looked at Ed, her eyes wide. “Do you think they will?”
He shook his head. “She’s lying.”
“But she saw us.” Phoebe’s features started to redden as anger replaced her shock and fear. “Did you show the pictures to Zane?”
“Of course and I told him of your threats.” She was praying that they would believe her. “Why else would Zane break up with you?”
The fury in Phoebe’s eyes told her that her plan had just backfired. “We can’t make any mistakes here then. Kill her, Ed. If they find her body, they’ll never suspect me. As far as the pictures, I can tell Zane I had a friend visit and that was just a hug and light kiss.”
Jessie’s stomach clenched. “It sure looks like more in the pictures.”
“Shut up,” Phoebe snapped.
Ed started walking toward Jessie and she took a step back and then another. “With all she is saying we better use plan B that I mentioned. I saw an old place when I was exploring that is an accident waiting to happen.”
Jessie wanted to push her rain-soaked hair out of her face but she didn’t dare. She had to think of some way out of this. So far all she’d managed to do was make Phoebe even angrier.
“How did you find me?” Jessie asked, then the answer came to her. “You were behind me when I was talking to the station attendant.”
“We had to wait until you were far enough off that no one would see us take care of you,” Ed said. “Or we would have met up with you sooner.”
“They’ll see your tire tracks in the mud.” Jessie gestured to the car. “And your footprints.”
“Ed will be leaving town for a while and he’ll get another car,” Phoebe said.
“Besides,” Ed said. “It is supposed to rain hard. That will help to wash away the tracks.”
The situation seemed more hopeless than ever. Jessie swallowed past the ball lodged in her throat. But she wouldn’t give up. She’d think of something.
“Now get in.” He gestured with the gun toward the black sports car.
She walked toward the car, feeling as if the world was falling down on her.
When they reached the vehicle, he kept the gun on her as she scooted in the back seat. Phoebe slid into the front passenger seat and Ed handed her the gun. “Keep it on her,” he said.
“No problem.” Phoebe had a satisfied note in her voice.
Jessie tried to slow her breathing before she hyperventilated. Gradually her breathing slowed and she felt a little calmer. As calm as one could be with a gun trained on her by a woman who wanted her dead.
Ed eased behind the driver’s seat and started the car.
Water dripped down Jessie’s body and ran onto the leather car seats as she stared at Phoebe. Rain pounded down on the car and the windshield wipers went back and forth, back and forth, in a solid rhythm that matched the pounding in Jessie’s head.
The woman’s grip on the gun never wavered. Her determination to kill Jessie was so crystal clear that Jessie knew Phoebe wouldn’t hesitate to kill her whether or not it would get blood on the seats.
Jessie thought about jumping out of the car, but there was no place to hide and she’d just be good target practice for them.
She paid attention to the route. If she broke free, she could make it back to the main road and hopefully flag down a car.
They drove back toward the heart of the San Rafael Valley and she recognized places she’d photographed.
Eventually Ed turned the vehicle down a rutted single-lane road after passing over a cattle guard. Zane had pointed it out to her not long ago as an old, abandoned ranch that had been in a friend’s family for generations before they lost everything when the economy tanked. No one had lived there for over a century, she remembered him saying. Not this part of the ranch.
The car bounced and bottomed out, but Ed kept on driving, the wheels sloshing through mud puddles gathering along the way.
They reached an old tumbledown house set beneath huge trees and overgrown vegetation.
The sick feeling grew even greater in her belly when Ed parked and then opened the rear door and told her to get out.
She slowly eased out of the car and into the rain. She needed to think of something. She
would
think of something.
Was she just kidding herself? Did she have a prayer?
“Turn around.” Ed gestured toward the house. “And walk.”
Adrenaline pumped through Jessie’s body and her heart continued to beat like crazy. She took slow, small steps.
Ed planted his palm between her shoulder blades and shoved. “Move it.”
She stumbled sideways. Her foot slipped in the mud and she dropped to the ground. She landed on her forearm hard and pain splintered through her.
“Get up.” Ed kicked her in the side so hard that breath rushed from her lungs and she cried out. She wrapped her arms around her waist as she tried to catch her breath.
“Don’t,” Phoebe said and Jessie wondered why she was trying to stop Ed from beating her, until she added, “It won’t look like an accident if you mess her up.”
“Depends on just how we kill her.” Ed kicked her again and she screamed from the pain when his shoe connected with her jaw and stars sparked in her mind. “If the house collapses on her they’ll just think she got hurt that way.”
“Well, hurry up.” Phoebe sounded urgent now. “We can’t take any chances that anyone will spot us.”
Ed gave her a long-suffering look. “No one is going to find us,” he said. “Get up,” Ed shouted to Jessie and looked like he was going to kick her again. “Now.”
Jessie scrambled to get to her feet but slipped in the mud. She was coated in it but she ignored it and managed to stand on her next attempt.
He gestured with the gun again. “Walk.”
Jessie held her belly still as she turned and went toward the house and tried to clear her mind of the pain.
“Hold this on her,” Ed said. “I’m going look again at something over here that I saw the other day. Might be the perfect thing to make it look like an accident.”
Jessie looked over her shoulder and Phoebe now had the gun on her.
Ed walked past Jessie, shoved her, and she went down in the mud again.
She rested on her hands and knees and tears started to burn at the corners of her eyes.
No.
She wasn’t going to cry.
“You can stay there for now.” Phoebe smirked. “It’s where you belong.”
A few moments later, Ed reappeared and he was smiling, a tight satisfied smile. “There’s an old well back there.”
“That’s great.” Phoebe gave a malicious grin. “All we have to do is drop her in it and she’ll break her neck.”
Ed took the gun from Phoebe. “We can cover the well up with boards. They’ll never find her.” To Jessie he said, “Get up.”
A hot rush of anger washed over Jessie and she glared at them. “Why should I? You might as well shoot me. You’re going to kill me anyway.”
She saw it coming but there was nothing she could do to prepare herself as he kicked her again.
This time she felt something crack when his shoe connected with her ribs. She screamed in pain. Her eyes watered and she felt hot tears mix with the cold rain on her cheeks.
Ed dragged her to her feet by her hair and she sobbed as she tried to take a breath. He shoved her forward and she fell again.
“Hold the gun on her,” Ed said to Phoebe from behind Jessie.
He forced her to her feet and this time grabbed her by the back of her neck and marched her toward the backyard of the old house.
Jessie knew the end was close if she didn’t do something.
She started struggling and fighting Ed, her ribs shooting pain through her with every move she made. She caught him off guard and he slipped and fell but took her to the ground with him She almost blacked out from the pain when they hit the ground. Stars sparked behind her eyelids and she was afraid she really was going to black out.
“Bitch,” he growled and got up.
This time instead of bringing her to her feet, he dragged her in the mud to the well. Through her blurred vision she saw that he’d taken the wood off the top of it.
She fought the entire way tears pouring down her cheeks. As they got closer her heart sank but she struggled more than ever. She saw that he had cleared the boards away from the well. It was bigger around than at first appearances. He’d have no problem throwing her down it.
When they reached the old well, she screamed with everything she had even though she knew no one could hear her.
Ed jerked her to her feet so that she was on the edge.
Terror ripped through her as she stood at the edge of the well and felt his palm on her back. She turned just as he shoved.
She screamed and her voice echoed through the well as she flailed and managed to grab Ed around his ankle.
The man shouted in surprise as his shoes slid in the mud and his feet went out from under him.
Jessie screamed again as he fell and she dropped lower, her feet dangling beneath her. She looked up and caught a glimpse of him clawing at the ground, trying to get a grip in the muddy soil.
“Get off, bitch.” He apparently had gotten hold of something because he wasn’t dropping anymore and he was trying to shake her off.
Her arms ached as she held on with everything she had. She didn’t know how much longer she could maintain her grip. With the pain in her chest from her broken ribs it was a wonder she didn’t pass out.
Holding onto Ed wasn’t going to do any good as far as saving her life, she knew, but she could at least take the bastard down with her.
Through her fear she saw a large tree root growing through the wall of the well. If she could reach that root, she might have a chance. It was big enough that if she could pull herself up onto it she’d have something to rest on.
She reached for the root but her fingertips only brushed it.
“Ed!” Phoebe was screaming. “What do you want me to do?”
“Grab my hand,” he said.
“You’ll pull me in with you.” Phoebe sounded terrified. “I’m not strong enough.”
“You have to try.” Fear was in his voice.