The Killing Game (43 page)

“This is where the fun begins.” He said it with such anticipation that she visibly shivered and her insides went numb.

During the drive her body had recovered slightly from the tasing. Her brain was clearer, and when she told her head to turn in a certain direction, she was able to. But she kept still, not wanting him to know she was gaining control of her muscles. Faking her infirmity might be her only weapon in a very slim arsenal.

Keep your wits about you. Be smart. Keep cool.

He climbed out of the car, threw off the jacket and left it on the ground, then came around to the passenger side. He’d pulled off his ski mask on the drive and now he dragged her from the car, propping her up to stand, but she dropped to the earthy-smelling ground.

“Get up!” he demanded, and she made gurgling noises behind the gag.

He pulled a knife from his pocket and put it close to her face. But then he smiled and bent down to slice the ties binding her ankles. Then he yanked her to her feet, keeping her hands bound, and half-dragged her up the two steps to the front door. It was open and he threw her inside as he flipped a switch near the door. Several lamps flickered on. The furnishings were modern and bare. A bookcase holding a flat-screen and video equipment dominated the space in front of an L-shaped leather couch.

Carter pulled a small remote from his pocket and clicked it. The wall shifted, opening to a narrow hallway. “This way,” he said, grabbing her by her bound wrists and hauling her to her feet. He pushed her through the opening, along the short hallway and to another windowless room where a chair was placed squarely in its center.

Andi’s heart filled with ice as she looked around the room. The perimeter was lined with several computers, two large televisions screens, a chessboard set up on a small table, and a bookshelf filled with books on puzzles, mysteries, and magic. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere and fresh air somehow was vented inside, though the room had a deadened quality to it. She knew without being told she could scream forever and never be heard.

Andi swallowed hard. A digital clock glowed a warning red. It had been nearly an hour since she’d been abducted.

“Now, sit,” he ordered, using his pistol to point to the austere ladder-back chair in the middle of the floor. She took a step that way and fell, as if her legs had given way. She didn’t have to fake the trembling. She was frightened enough that her shaking was visible.

“Get up!”

She struggled into the chair and he strapped her into it, tying her with a thin, wiry cord that cut into her arms.

“You know, Andi, I’ve always found you attractive,” he said. He glanced up from tying her ankles to each chair leg and found her eyes. “You were always too good for Greg. You should have known it wouldn’t work. The bastard couldn’t even get you pregnant, but he sure could Mimi. Yep, she was pregnant. I checked, and I was going to have to do something about it, but then she took care of things herself.”

Finished securing her, Carter straightened and ran cool fingers along the line of her jaw. Her revulsion almost made her shrink away, but she didn’t
.

He walked to the front of the chair so that his crotch was only inches from her face and the bulge straining his pants was visible. He was getting off on this.

“Gregory. What made you choose him? He never had any vision. He was a drone, working just like our father wanted him to. A drudge. I was always the one with the intelligence.”

The gun. Watch where he puts the gun . . .

“And yet you fell for Greg, and now that ex-
cop
? You like ’em big and dumb? Is that it?” He shook his head, the small smile on his lips full of self-importance. “I guess it’s only fair to tell you that Greg didn’t really sleep around. Yes, there was Mimi. I worked to get that affair started. But there really weren’t any others. Greg wasn’t a player. I just told you that to keep the game going, fan the fires to keep you confused and misdirected. All part of the game.

“Want to know what it’s called?”

Of course she couldn’t answer.

“I named it: Cover up your misdeeds and get all the inheritance for yourself. Y’see, dead old Dad didn’t trust me with the company. Thought Greg was a better shepherd of the Wren inheritance. I knew I had to get rid of Greg eventually,” he admitted, slipping his gun into his belt. “He was a liability. That’s why the Carreras took care of it for me.”

Andi started, unable to hide her surprise.

“Oh, you didn’t know that, did you? You thought it was an accident. Greg, driving away from Mimi’s, in a confused state over his love for two women. . . .” Carter chuckled. “He didn’t have that much emotion. He was a robot. But he did discover I’d helped myself to some company money without asking . . .”

Andi’s brain burned with rage. The horror of what he was saying added fuel to the fire of her fury. Greg may not have been the perfect husband, but he hadn’t deserved to be murdered. Her hands clenched and she forced them to straighten so she wouldn’t give herself away.

“Of course Greg was only half of the problem; there was Emma, too.”

Andi flashed to Emma’s unlikely fall down the stairs, when she’d been stone-cold sober. And she thought of her lying in the hospital bed, broken and pumped up on pain pills.

“I was willing to wait, but the Carrera boys, they’re impatient. Brian just gave her a little push this morning. He let me know ahead of time that he’d planned to take care of her today. Of course he thought she’d be shit-faced drunk as usual. Who knew she’d choose today to sober up? But that’s all part of the game, isn’t it? Surprise.”

When he looked down at the chessboard, she tested her bonds. They were tight, digging into her ankles and shoulders, her hands still tied together behind her, her arms aching. But they had feeling now, and she could command them to do her bidding.

Patience. Outwait him.

“So now we come down to you, my beautiful little bird. What am I going to do with you?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Carter wasn’t at the lodge. Luke had tried phoning both him and Ben. Ben had returned to the hospital and Emma; he’d spoken to both of them, and they’d been alarmed when he’d said Andi was missing. And then Emma had asked in a frightened voice if Andi was with Carter. His blood chilling, he’d asked her what she meant, but all she’d said was that she wanted him to find Andi soon.

Carter’s phone kept going to voice mail, so after a while Luke stopped calling. He knew Carter’s address, as he knew Emma and Ben’s. He’d made a point of acquainting himself with Andi’s family, more in case he needed to reach them for any reason, but now . . .

Something was off with Carter. Emma knew something, or thought she knew something, and that was good enough for him.

There was a reason Andi’s phone was in the bushes and he was starting to fear that reason was Carter Wren.

* * *

Carter was watching Andi like a snake with a mouse.

“How am I going to come up with your demise?” he asked her conversationally. “There are just too many deaths right now, too many accidents, too much suspicion. As stupid and ineffective as the police are, they do have their means, don’t they? With computers and sharing records, DNA testing, and all that forensic crap of trace evidence and the like, I have to be more careful than before.

“I miss the pre-DNA days, before iPhone cameras and microphones on every damned civilian. That’s why I bought the car for cash from an illegal.”

Andi watched him warily, and, when he wasn’t looking, searching for a weapon or a means of escape. There had to be some way to trip him up, some way to get the upper hand.

“So, now what I need is misdirection,” he said, warming to his subject. “A little sleight of hand. That’s what the bird thing was all about. You were a Wren and your bestest friend was a Finch. I started this campaign long ago. Way before Greg’s death. I had to plan many steps ahead. That’s how you play chess, you know; plan moves way in advance of the one you’re making.”

She tried surreptitiously working her wrists, moving them just the slightest, trying to stretch the ties. She set her jaw, put all her concentration into forcing her hands apart.

For now, he didn’t notice and kept right on talking. “Then it was simply a matter of finding other people with last names that were birds. Women I could manipulate. Not that it was easy. It had to be women, an added benefit to the game for my own personal enjoyment.” He looked at Andi slyly, then walked toward the stack of board games.

Andi pulled harder at her restraints. They didn’t budge. As for a weapon, the only thing she saw was a tiny screwdriver small enough to be used on a computer, left out by a stack of video games. But there was the bookcase itself, if she could find a way to topple it. Unless it was bolted to the wall, she could possibly maim or even kill him, should the heavy electronic equipment hit him just right. The gamesman killed by his own games. Or she could grab the gun and fire it in this tiny space, damning where the bullets ricocheted.

“—Belinda Meadowlark was easy,” he was saying. “She was so damned hot for me, wanted it so bad she was practically panting for me when I tossed her off the ferry into the water.” He licked his lips, his tongue flicking against his skin, and again his erection was hardening under his pants.

“Trini didn’t know me, so she was easy. I couldn’t take the chance she’d see some resemblance between me and Greg, so I always wore a disguise. She thought it was funny. Actually worked in my favor.”

Carter grabbed another chair and dragged it over in front of her. He sat down and leaned forward, close enough to her that his breath ruffled her hair. “I was always worried she might go scrolling through your wedding pictures, though, and make the connection, but she really didn’t like Greg much, so she had no interest in your wedding.”

Oh Trini. I’m so sorry....
Andi’s throat was hot with unshed tears.

Carter went on. “I pretended to fall for her, and because she was such a promiscuous slut it was easy to start a relationship. Too easy.” He grinned, a leering, smug, king-of-the-world grin. “Poor little bird. She had a shellfish allergy. I pretended I had one, too. I really planned to sneak some shrimp into her diet somehow, but then I found out about cricket flour, that it’s in the same family as shellfish. It was perfect. You should have seen the way her eyes bulged as her throat was closing. She choked to death knowing I wanted to kill her far more than I ever wanted to fuck her.”

Andi couldn’t stop the gasp of horror from behind her gag. Again she worked the plastic ties at her wrists. Had they given a little? Stretched? Oh please!

“And then
your
brother left his wallet at the scene of the crime!’” He chortled and shook his head. “I’m telling you, it was perfect. Perfect! The best kind of surprise.”

He threw his head back and roared with laughter. “I took away Trini’s cell phone and dropped it into the lake miles from here. There were just too many calls to my cell phone on it. Of course I gave her the number for one of those disposable phones, not my real cell, and supposedly untraceable, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. A good player knows all the risks.”

He tilted his head to one side, as if he were really thinking things through. “It did get harder and harder to find women with names of birds. There was the first one in eastern Oregon, Nightingale, and then Meadowlark, then Finch, then Tern ... those last two were close together because you, my dear, were becoming a problem. You and that dumb cop. I followed you around, both of you. I knew we were heading to the endgame.”

Andi was sweating, though the temperature in the room wasn’t all that warm. She was still working her wrists, but the zip ties weren’t giving a quarter of a damned inch. She glanced at the digital clock and saw that they had been locked in this tiny room twenty minutes already. Would Luke be looking for her? Surely he’d realized by now that she was missing. It had been well over an hour since she’d first been abducted. She bit her lip and Carter caught the movement.

“What’s the matter, little bird? Worried? Maybe you’d like a pill for what’s ailing you.”

Andi gazed at him in confusion.

“You know those pills, the ones your guru shrink prescribed?” He waited, letting her wonder. “Pretty strong, weren’t they? Those blackouts? I switched ’em out. I had a friend get me a key, and when you weren’t home, I sneaked into your house and looked around and found your pill bottle.”

Luke had been right about the size of the pills, Andi realized. She couldn’t believe the depths Carter had gone to.

“No one was picking up on my bird killings, so I decided to start leaving you notes. I had a key to your cabin, but I had to cover my tracks, so I faked the break-in. I couldn’t take a chance that someone might start questioning how someone got in and left the message for you.”

Behind her gag, her mouth was dry, the damned ties holding far too fast, and she had to fight to keep her spirits from flagging.

“So, now you see, it’s your turn to play the game.”

She watched as he set his firearm on the table, directly in front of her but completely out of reach. He was toying with her. He knew she was aware of his weapon, that she was watching it.

“I like you, Andi. I’m kind of fascinated with you and I’d love to fuck you. You’d find it pleasurable. I’m good in bed. Very good. I could really get you going.”

No way in hell.

“But the most important part of this game is that I need control of the company.
My
company finances. Brian may have bungled his job today. Emma might not die immediately, but it’s only a matter of time. Like Greg, she has to go.”

Andi noted another fifteen minutes had passed and the ties, though giving a bit, were also cutting into her wrists.

“The beauty of it is, my darling sister has made me her beneficiary.”

Andi must’ve changed facial expressions because Carter’s eyes glinted. “News to you, isn’t it? After we learned Greg had left his shares to you, Em and I made a pact to leave ours to each other. No Ben. No one else. No one else,” he repeated, looking at her. “Who’s your beneficiary, Andi? Oh, that’s right. It’s Greg. You never changed it after his death. And since he’s gone, the shares go back to the company.