Thin Ice (29 page)

But after all he'd found out about Terzic in the past ninety minutes, he had a stomach-churning feeling the real explanation was far more sinister.

T
he road wasn't smooth anymore.

Bad sign.

Whatever their destination, they could be getting close.

Using her feet to brace against the jostling motion of the car, Christy forced herself to take slow, steady breaths. If she panicked, she had no chance of outmaneuvering her abductor. She needed to keep her wits about her, think clearly.

But how could she strategize when she had no idea what was coming?

One thing for sure, though—time was her friend. The longer she delayed whatever end he had in mind for her, the longer she'd have to discern his intent and come up with a plan . . . and the longer Lance and the FBI would have to find her.

If Neven was behind this, she might be able to get him to talk. Encourage him to tell her why he'd gone to extreme lengths to exact punishment. Someone who'd planned such meticulous crimes might want to brag . . . or even gloat . . . about them—and she was his only possible audience, barring a confession to law enforcement.

She doubted that was on his agenda.

If trying to engage him in conversation didn't work, maybe she could . . .

Her lungs froze.

The car was stopping.

A new swell of panic crashed over her. Should she scrap her previous ideas and kick out at him when he opened the trunk? But if she did, would he finish her off on the spot?

A car door opened. The Mazda shifted. A door shut.

She was out of time.

Every muscle taut, her gaze flew to the top of the trunk lid. With so little information to go on, she'd have to play this by ear. Trust her instincts.

And pray she made the right choices in the critical moments to come.

Christy's car wasn't here.

Lowering his flashlight, Lance stepped back from the small window in her condo's rear-entry garage.

Not good.

His phone began to vibrate, and Mark's name appeared on the screen.

He punched the talk button. “She's not here. What do you have?”

“Terzic's MIA too. His apartment was dark when I pulled up, and no one answered the door. But his car's here. I got his plate number and matched it up to a Civic in the lot. Then I knocked on a couple of doors. One neighbor saw him leaving about an hour and a half ago—on foot, with a backpack.”

Lance's pulse spiked. “I'm going to call in a BOLO alert on Christy's car and see if our tech agents can get a GPS fix on her cell. I'm also going to look around here for any evidence she made it home. I could use another set of eyes.”

“I'm on my way.”

As Lance dealt with the BOLO alert and passed on Christy's cell information to the office, he walked around her property. Through a side window, he could see the red light on the new security keypad by the back door. Activated. Her mail was still in the box. A UPS sticker was stuck to her front door.

He had the office track down the security guard at the rink, who confirmed he'd walked Christy to her car and watched her pull out of the lot.

So what had happened between there and here?

Just as he received the news that there was no signal from her phone, Mark pulled up.

Lance continued the conversation as he went to meet the other agent. “Keep monitoring it in case a signal does come through.” A long shot . . . but possible. Christy would know he'd be trying to pinpoint her location. If she got the chance, she'd turn the cell on. They only needed a brief window to lock in on her. “Call me if you get a fix.”

“Find anything?” Mark tapped his flashlight against his palm and did a quick visual sweep.

Lance slid the phone back onto his belt. “Nothing in the front or on the sides. I want to scout around the back some more.”

“Let's do it.”

Once they began a circuit at the rear of the condo, it didn't take Lance long to spot the branch—or the remnants of a trail of twigs across the driveway that appeared to have been hastily brushed aside.

“Mark! Over here.”

The other agent joined him. His colleague sized up the situation in one glance and came to the same conclusion Lance had already reached. “A branch blocking the entrance to her garage—a simple but effective ploy to get her out of the car.”

“Yeah.” Lance peered at the asphalt, then directed his flashlight at two faint parallel tracks.

The bottom fell out of his stomach.

“Heels.” He looked over at Mark. “Someone dragged Christy. I bet she ended up in her own trunk.”

The other man's features hardened. “Trunks are bad places. I almost lost Emily in one.”

Lance reached for his phone. “I'm gonna get an evidence response tech out here. If there's anything linking Terzic to whatever happened in this driveway, I want it found.”

A light came on in the adjacent condo while he punched in the number, and a moment later the door cracked open. A sixtyish man peered out, his expression wary. “Can I help you two gentlemen?”

Leaving Mark to deal with him, Lance turned aside and walked several yards away.

By the time he finished the call, Mark was back. “That saves us knocking on one door—which I assume is the next step.”

“Yeah. I'm going to ask County for some manpower to help us with the door-to-door stuff. Did that guy offer anything?” Lance slid his phone onto his belt.

“An ETA for Christy. He saw her car pull in at 6:45 while he was getting his mail.”

“Did he see it leave?”

“No.”

“We need to find out if anyone else did. I also want to get into Terzic's apartment with one of our computer techs. There's a chance he didn't deactivate the GPS unit he put on Christy's car. Why would he, if he thought no one knew what he was up to?”

“I don't think he'd be that sloppy—but it's worth a shot. Why don't I call for the cop backup here and get another agent on site to coordinate the door-to-door while you check in with Steve?”

The reactive squad supervisor.

His boss.

Right.

He owed him an update.

Man, getting used to the whole chain-of-command rigmarole was a bear. The authority to act on his own initiative had been one of the best parts of being in The Unit.

“My next call.” He pulled his phone back out.

“You might want to get him working on warrants too. We've got exigent circumstances on our side for tracking Christy's GPS and a warrantless entry at Terzic's, but we at least need to get the paperwork in process.”

“Right.” He knew that—but red tape rankled . . . and he had a feeling it always would after the freedom of Delta. “I'll make my calls while I head over to Terzic's. I'll also see if our office can track someone down who will let us in at the apartment. You want to hang around here and brief the local cops until we have another agent on site?”

“Yeah. I'll join you as soon as I can. If you aren't already in, I have a pick gun in the car.”

Lance arched an eyebrow. “You carry a pick gun?”

“You'd be surprised how often it comes in handy—even on SWAT missions. It may be more dramatic to kick down a door or shoot out a lock, but it's a lot safer to use a pick.”

Smart thinking.

Working on a SWAT team under the former HRT operator's leadership could be interesting . . . if he ever wanted to consider it.

“Okay. I'll see you at Terzic's.” Lance took off at a jog for his car, already dialing Steve's number.

If fate was kind, one of Christy's neighbors had seen some helpful detail—or the GPS unit on her car was still working.

But given their track record so far with this case, the odds of getting a break weren't comforting.

Another shiver convulsed Christy as she curled into a ball in the frigid trunk, her shakes fed by equal parts fear and cold.

Where was her abductor?

The car had stopped . . . how long ago? Ten minutes? Half an hour? Impossible to tell. Each second felt like an eternity.

But he'd been gone a while.

Why was he waiting to open the trunk?

She shifted her position, trying to relieve the ache in her stomach. There was a reason for the delay. This guy was meticulous. He had an agenda—and a timetable. He'd be back to finish her off as soon as that item came up on his checklist. If he'd simply wanted her dead, he could have accomplished that in the driveway with a simple knife thrust.

Given the elaborate lengths he'd gone to with her parents and Ginny, he'd surely thought up some creative way for her to die—and it wasn't going to be quick and easy. If she was the payoff, the finale, he'd probably saved the—

She tensed.

Outside sounds were muffled, but that faint snapping of twigs could—

All at once, a key was inserted in the lock on the trunk.

A heartbeat later, the lid swung up.

Instantly, a bright light blinded her.

She turned her head aside, but he grabbed her face in a vise-like grip and forced it back, toward the searing beam.

“Look at me.”

She slitted her eyes, but the light was too bright.

“I said look at me!” His grip tightened, the pressure crushing her cheekbones.

A tear leaked out of her eye.

He released her face, and the light became a bit less intense. “Tears? Excellent. I like to see you cry—and you did it very well at all the funerals. I think Ginny's service was the best. The first one, anyway.”

The man's cold, amused words sucked the life out of her tears, replacing them with terror.

He'd been there, at all the funerals? Watching the people he'd killed be buried, gloating over her pain?

Sick, sick, sick.

Fighting back a wave of nausea, she forced herself to squint into the light until a murky shape emerged out of the darkness. Her abductor appeared to be of medium height. And lean, despite the insulated outerwear he wore. She already knew he was strong. His face was too shadowed to see clearly, even if he hadn't been wearing a ski mask . . . but what was that on his head?

A miner's helmet?

He altered his position slightly. The light moved with him, reducing the glare long enough for her to confirm the source of illumination.

Ingenious.

The helmet left his hands free and kept her in the dark—literally.

This guy was every bit as smart as they'd feared.

“You aren't going to cry after all? Disappointing . . . but I can wait. There'll be more tears later. Lots more.”

His accent was faint but detectable if you were listening for it.

Meaning this was the guy who'd killed her sister. The one the prostitute had told Lance about.

But was it Neven?

He leaned closer, and she shrank back, trying to tuck herself into a crevice in the trunk, out of his reach.

It didn't work. He grabbed her leg, pulled her forward, and hoisted her out, setting her on the ground in one fast, fluid motion.

The world tilted, and his hand shot out to steady her. “No fainting, Christy. I need you upright until after the performance.”

She blinked.

Performance?

What on earth was he talking about?

“Start walking. That way.” He pointed behind her.

She twisted her neck. They were in a small clearing in the middle of the woods, surrounded by darkness.

Where was she supposed to walk?

“Move.”

Something hard rammed her between the shoulder blades, and she stumbled forward. Turned back.

The barrel of a pistol was aimed at her heart.

And while she'd never seen one in real life, that appendage on the end looked like a silencer.

Her lungs deflated.

“I'm not going to shoot you . . . if you follow my instructions. That's very important, Christy. People who don't follow my instructions make me angry. I do things that aren't very nice when I'm angry.”

Like run people off cliffs. Burn down houses. Throw bodies in the river.

She swiveled back and started walking, praying her shaky legs would continue to support her.