“Good. Now do me a favor, Joe. Keep your eyes open for a gray Nissan Pathfinder. I think it’s a two-thousand model. Belongs to the boy who gives Amy a ride home every day.”
“I’ll do that. But do yourself a favor, Hank. Don’t overreact. If you’re wrong about Bubba Ray Busby, which we pretty much concluded you are, then you’re probably wrong about his son. Hell, there’s no record of a Ned Busby ever existing.”
Hank grabbed his keys and stormed for the door. “I hope you’re right.”
Chapter 75
When Layne pulled out his cell phone to call 911 and found the battery dead, he slapped himself for his stupidity.
You never charge the damn thing.
He slapped himself again, harder.
Stupid!
The blows helped him grab hold of his senses as he followed the Mercedes out of town limits, further away from civilization, and onto Highway 45.
Where are they going? What was he going to do once they got there?
You’re going to be a fucking hero, that’s what you’re going to do.
But how?
Several other questions spun around the chaos in Layne’s head. He turned off the radio to hear himself think but it didn’t do much good. He couldn’t concentrate. Nothing in his head resembled rational thought.
As he imagined what the madman might do to Amy, his anger overcame his anxiety. His vision turned red.
As his fingers tightened around the steering wheel, he remembered the knife, and all he could think was kill.
Kill.
KILL!
The Hyde within him chuckled, knowing Jekyll wouldn’t raise a finger to draw the amount of blood necessary to do the job. But if that bastard hurt Amy, I’m going to make sure his descent into Hell is slow and painful.
Another bout of demented laughter rang out in his head. Layne could feel his dark half trying to dig its way to the surface of his consciousness, but he pushed it back.
I can do this on my own.
And knew he had to, because God knew what might happen to Amy if Zero was left to his own depraved devices.
Zero is not to be trusted. Never to be trusted.
Layne could only trust one man, and that man hoped to be the hero of the day.
I can do this.
But anxiety crept back in.
The woods on both sides of the road thickened. As he drove further away from civilization, shadows lengthened, and the sun sunk deeper behind the horizon.
The cold knot in his stomach tightened.
He passed a small, rectangular road sign reading GULFCREST.
Chapter 76
“Wh-where are we going?” Asked the girl who reeked of piss.
“Enough fucking questions,” Adam snapped. “You’re merely a means to an end. This dance is between me and the succubus.”
Eve whimpered. “Please let us go. We’ll give you whatever you want. Please just let us go!”
Adam laughed and leaned over the console to lick the tears from her face. “I’ve been waiting a long time to get my hands on you, Eve. Pappy said you’re The Lost One. Said he almost had ya. But you’re a cunning little bitch. I bet you thought you could hide forever, but I was destined to find you. Now, we will restore Eden. Bring Paradise back to Earth.”
“Ooh, Gaaawwwd,” Eve moaned.
“Yes,” Adam snickered close to her ear. “Praise God! We’re on the road to salvation, baby.”. Overtaken with lust and rapture, he kissed her on the cheek. “His will be done!”
Chapter 77
Amy wasn’t home.
Trying not to panic, Hank snatched the phone in the kitchen and flipped through the address book in search of Layne Hardy’s phone number.
He didn’t find it, but he dialed the Adair’s to see if Amy was with Catherine
“No, Cat hasn’t made home from school yet,” Nancy Adair said. “She might be with that junkie boyfriend of hers. Everything okay?”
“Yeah, just a little worried,” Hank said. “You know how it is, with teenage girls. You got Layne Hardy’s phone number by chance.”
“Um, let me check. No, I sure don’t. I wouldn’t concern myself too much about it. She’ll show up. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
“Thanks.” Hank hung up the phone and dropped it on the counter.
With his heart racing, he glared at the fat dead man leaning against the refrigerator with his hairy arms folded across his chest, smug smile on his face and a bullet hole in the center of his creased forehead.
“He’s got your little bitch,” said Steve Goodwin. “Just like you knew he would. Gonna have some fun with her too, I reckon. Told ya it wasn’t me. You killed the wrong man.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Hank grumbled, turning his back on the ghost.
He turned Amy’s room upside down looking for anything that might hold Layne Hardy’s phone number. He looked in the drawer of her nightstand and all through her desk. Found nothing. He checked her bookshelf, her closet, her jewelry box, and then opened all the drawers of her bureau. He shuffled through her clothes and underwear and found a sleek purple notebook beneath her panties. Amy’s diary?
He opened it, flipped through the pages, and stopped when he came to a picture that could have only come from an old box of family photographs locked away in his mother’s bedroom.
It was his dead sister’s wedding portrait, taken outside the clapboard chapel at the old family compound in Gulfcrest. Arm forcibly linked to Bubba Ray Busby, who smiled stupidly at the camera, Hannah’s big brown eyes were downcast, her face crestfallen. The epitome of sorrow.
I don’t believe this. Hank shook with rage. How long did Amy have this?
Anger entangled with the fear Hank felt for his daughter. He struggled to decide which to go with.
“Reckon you got yourself a problem,” said Steve Goodwin, standing in the doorway. “Too bad I can’t help ya none. It’s over for that sexy lil’ nymph.”
Teeth barred, Hank chunked Amy’s diary at the ghost, which vanished like a wisp of fog.
“She’s a goner.”
The notebook hit the wall on the other side of the hallway and clattered to the floor. The sound of mocking laughter followed.
“Told ya it wasn’t me. This is what you get.”
Hank dropped the photo and punched the mirror capturing his ragged reflection. Shattered glass rained down on the cluttered bureau. His knuckles bled, but he paid no mind to the pain.
In a blind fit of fury, he grabbed the chair behind Amy’s desk and threw into the adjacent wall, missing the window by an inch. His pulse throbbed, his heart pounded.
With a dull ache in the pit of his stomach, he collapsed on Amy’s bed. A hollowness at the bottom of his soul left him empty inside. A shell.
I failed her again. My poor little girl.
He held his face in his bleeding hands and wept. Feelings of hopelessness and loss clung to him like a heavy shroud.
If they find her dead because of me. If they find her like those other girls—
Before he could finish the thought, he felt a cold yet comforting hand fall like a leaf gently on his shoulder.
Chapter 78
“There,” Adam said excitedly. “Pull in there!”
The piss-smelling slut behind the steering wheel did as she was told, and turned down a narrow, overgrown dirt road leading off the highway into a deep expanse of darkening woods.
Adam stared out the window at the passing pines, shrubs, and thickets. They passed through a demolished tangle of chain-link and barbed wire, and reached the wooded ruins of what used to be the Sons of Adam Camp, or so he learned from his dreams.
“This is it,” he said. “We’re here.” All that was left of it, however, was chunks of rotten wood, shards of broken glass, and sheets of rusted metal scattered about the undergrowth and forest refuse. “Stop the car,” Adam said, mildly disappointed.
When they stopped in the middle of the road, Adam let go of Eve’s hair, leaned over in the back seat, and plunged his knife into the other girl’s carotid artery. “Your services here are done,” he said.
The girl’s scream caught in her throat, severed with a gargled gasp of terror.
Chapter 79
Blood spurted and splattered all over Amy, who, teetering on the edge of madness, couldn’t stop herself from screaming.
This isn’t happening. This isn’t real. It’s just some crazy dream!
But the more Catherine’s blood sprinkled her face like a warm scarlet shower, the more the dream became a horrifying reality.
Oh, no. Cat!
Amy stared in shock as her friend convulsed like a fish suffocating on the sand, choking on her own blood.
She’s dying!
A gloved hand jerked the knife from her neck. The jagged blade glistened crimson in the waning light of evening.
Amy stiffened. Her breath snatched in her chest.
He’s going to kill me next!
But before she could react, something rammed hard into the back of the Mercedes, jolting her violently forward.
Chapter 80
Adam was thrust into the back of Eve’s seat. Pain exploded in his head and tremored down his back, stunning him. But he held on firmly to his knife
Looking out the back window, he glared at the boy behind the wheel of the Pathfinder. He’d noticed him following them for a few miles down the highway, but he hadn’t paid much attention to it once they pulled into the woods. In fact, he forgot all about it.
Until it was too late.
His blood boiled.
Ooh, you will feel my wrath.
As Eve descended further into hysterics Adam threw open his door, stumbled out into the fading light of day, and charged toward the Pathfinder.
Chapter 81
The element of surprise was what Layne was after. By wrecking into Catherine’s car, he hoped to catch the crazy man holding them hostage off guard, possibly injure him.
It didn’t work.
The man tore out of the back of the Mercedes, a bloodied knife clutched in his hand.
Blood?
Panic shot like icy venom through his heart. Layne popped open the glove compartment, grabbed his knife, and unfolded it.
Fear and adrenaline fought a fierce battle throughout his nervous system. He kicked open the driver side door and lunged forward.
Only to be held back by his seatbelt.
Fuck!
He twisted around to unlatch it when a man with murderous eyes beneath the bill of a camouflage cap appeared. He grabbed Layne by the throat and stabbed him deep in the stomach.
Layne’s knife slipped from his hand and hit the ground.
Chapter 82
During her fast tumble down the stairs of sanity, Amy recalled what her father said about a blood debt and thought about her dead aunt, missing uncle, and—
“Pappy said you’re the Lost One.”
—the cousin to whom she was promised.
“He almost had ya.”
Her kidnapper, his rant about restoring Paradise, and how he was destined to find her. He called her Eve.
“Together, we will restore Eden.”
Could he be—
“And Bring Paradise back to Earth.”
—the last Son of Adam?
Could he be Ned?
“Get out, Eve,” he ordered, wrenching open her door and unlatching her seatbelt. “You’re coming with me!”
A fresh bolt of terror struck her heart. In a mental fog, she attempted to fight him off.
With a fierce shriek, Amy kicked and swung her fists, but she failed to hit her cousin, who backhanded her in the jaw with a rocky fist.
“Stop struggling,” Ned commanded. “It’s futile to fight me. God is on my side. And you’re destined to die!”
Through a veil of tears, Amy saw the Nightmare Man, Bubba Ray Busby, standing among the shadows, watching with a proud smile as his son finally took what he was owed.
Beneath the bill of his cap, her cousin’s eyes gleamed with the flickering flames of fanaticism. He grabbed Amy by the hair and yanked her out of the car.
“Now, you will be punished for your sin against man, against Eden. And against God!”