Not yet.
Chapter Thirty.
Frantic, his heart pounding, Santana left Chilcoate and ran to his truck. He punched out the numbers of Alvarez"s cell phone and started the engine. "Come on, come on," he muttered, throwing his truck into reverse, backing up, then jamming the gears into drive and hitting the gas.
His call was sent straight to voicemail.
"s.h.i.t!" He left a quick message: "This is Nate Santana. Call me! I think the killer is up at the Kress Silver Mine. I think that"s where he"s got Regan!" Driving like a madman down the long, twisting road to Chilcoate"s house, he turned north.
Ivor Hicks, that old nutcase, had spilled the beans. But he wasn"t the culprit, he wasn"t the one who had to fear the d.a.m.ned "scorpion"s wrath." It was his son.
Hard to believe.
Billy Hicks was the killer?
It had to be! Had to!
"d.a.m.n, d.a.m.n...d.a.m.n," Santana said as the snow and gravel crunched beneath his tires as he wound through the thickets of drooping fir and stark, skeletal birch trees.
In his mind, over the ever-increasing frantic feeling of panic for Regan, he tried to roll back the years to when they were all kids-he and Billy, Padgett and Brady.
He flipped on the wipers and d.a.m.ned the falling snow, though patches of blue hinted that the storm was nearly over.
It had been true that Billy Hicks had felt proprietary toward Padgett Long, back in the day, like a number of others, as well. Santana had witnessed that need to possess her himself. All the h.o.r.n.y high school boys had been hanging around her back then. She was beautiful, smart, and different from the girls they went to school with. Rich, sophisticated, and slightly naughty, Padgett only came around in the summer or at Christmas break.
"Fresh meat," one of the kids, Gerald Cartwright, had said, ribbing Billy once. "And, h.e.l.l, in my book, she"s USDA prime!"
Billy had knocked Cartwright flat. He"d ended up in the emergency room with a broken nose.
At the time, Santana had thought Cartwright had gotten off lucky. As a kid, Billy"s temper had gotten the better of him, but as an adult, he"d seemed to keep it under control.
Santana pushed his truck onto the county road. Rising in the distance was Mesa Rock, a flat-topped mountain b.u.t.ting up to the abandoned Kress Silver Mine and Hubert Long"s Lazy L, where Santana worked.
"Right under your G.o.dd.a.m.ned nose," he said, cutting a glance at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His jaw was set, his eyes dark as obsidian, the corners of his mouth pinched in disgust. If he"d pieced this together earlier, if he"d looked in the right places, Regan might never have been abducted.
He silently cursed himself as the road began a series of sharp switchbacks. Traffic was light; he hardly saw another vehicle. Good.
Shifting down, he thought of Brady Long. What a p.r.i.c.k. He and Billy had been acquaintances, nothing more. But that had been a lifetime ago. What had set Billy off now?
Who the h.e.l.l knew?
He had to call the police. Alvarez was out, so, with one hand, he punched in 9-1-1.
Before the second ring, the phone was picked up by a female operator. "Nine-one-one dispatch. What is the nature of your emergency?"
"This is Nate Santana. I"m looking for Detective Alvarez or anyone on the task force! Now."
"Sir, is there an emergency?"
"h.e.l.l, yes, there"s an emergency. I know who the d.a.m.ned Star-Crossed Killer is and where he"s located."
"Is anyone injured?"
"Five people have been killed already!"
"Sir-"
"Just get a message to Detective Selena Alvarez or Sheriff Dan Grayson of the Pinewood County Sheriff"s Department! Tell them that I"m on my way to the Kress Silver Mine, out on the south side of Mesa Rock. I think that"s where he"s got them. His next victims are in the mine, and Billy Hicks, he"s the d.a.m.ned Star-Crossed Killer!"
"If you"ll stay on the line-"
Through the windshield he spied a minivan coming from the opposite direction and seeming out of control. The running lights were on dim, but they were heading right toward him. d.a.m.n!
He dropped the phone on the pa.s.senger seat.
The minivan"s tires were gripping, trying and failing to gain traction, as the vehicle slid across a patch of ice.
"s.h.i.t."
Running lights bore down on him.
With both hands, Nate eased his truck toward the shoulder, keeping his speed steady.
"Don"t do it," he warned. "Lady, don"t hit me!"
The driver was worried, a woman with a van filled with kids. The nose of the van crossed the center line, if it could have been seen, her wheels b.u.mping out of the twin set of ruts left by previous vehicles.
Santana didn"t have time for an accident or anything slowing him down. He pushed his truck to the limit of the road, his right tire precariously close to where he knew there was a ditch. It was filled with snow now, the edge indistinguishable, but he had to get past her car!
He saw the minivan"s fender heading straight for him.
He punched the accelerator, his truck fishtailing as he shot past the van. With an effort, he straightened out the wheels and jumped forward.
With one eye on the rearview mirror, he watched as the van wove across both lanes once, twice, then found its grip and lane. "Get home," he muttered under his breath and felt a fine sheen of nervous sweat between his shoulder blades. "It"s Christmas Eve!"
The minivan disappeared from view and he picked up the phone again, but he"d lost the call. His wipers sc.r.a.ped against the windshield, rubber screeching on dry gla.s.s. He snapped them off and pressed hard on the throttle.
There was still nearly ten miles of twisted, icy road before he reached the silver mine and Regan.
And what then? When you get to the mine, what will you do? How will you find her? There are miles upon miles of tunnels running beneath the acres that const.i.tute the mine. How the h.e.l.l will you locate Regan before it"s too late?
He knew the answer to that one.
He"d start with Billy"s house.
From there he might get a clue as to where the creep was holding his victims.
He might not tell you.
Wrong, he thought, his mind imagining just what he would do, if he had to.
Billy would spill his guts under the right kind of persuasion.
Usually, Santana was a nonviolent man, a person who could understand animals, commune with them with only touches. But when it came to humans, especially those who exacted their own torture and cruelty, Santana knew just what to do. Compliments of the U.S. Military.
The b.i.t.c.h isn"t giving up.
I run after her, steady, barely breathing hard.
I"ve got her and she knows it.
I watch as she stumbles, then falls down the embankment. Stupid woman. Didn"t she see that potential slide? She falls faster and faster down a ravine as I jog around the lip of the ridge, keeping her in my line of vision, staying on the deer trail that cuts along the edge of the hill.
She cries out and something flies from her hand. A stick...no, the b.i.t.c.h had a knife in her fist! One of mine! Now it"s gone. Lost in the snow.
This is getting worse and worse.
More and more out of control.
Rage thunders through me.
She thinks she can steal from me?
Then cut me with my own blade?
She deserves everything I give her and more! While she tumbles toward the bottom, I find the path that angles deep into this depression and never once let her out of my sight.
She finally slows, stops, and forces herself to her feet, but she"s unsteady. Dizzy. And I"m closing the distance as she staggers away.
For the first time I feel a bit of satisfaction.
She can"t last forever.
And the snow has stopped falling, patches of blue above. I vault over a frozen log, and a weasel, a blur of white with a black-tipped tail, scurries away deeper into the undergrowth. I take that as a good sign.
Yes, in many ways, it"s a perfect day for her to die.
Of course, I would prefer to break her spirit.
To make her depend upon me.
To have her think she"s in love with me.
To want me.
To offer herself up s.e.xually.
I would love to see the hope in her eyes as she imagines me mounting her the way that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Santana does.
Oh, I would make her forget him!
f.u.c.k her within an inch of her life.
Leave her sweating and panting and hurting with the feel of me.
Not that I would do it. It"s not part of my plan, and I"ve made no exceptions in that area. Yes, I left two in the forest in one day, Brandy earlier than Elyssa, which was a slight alteration, but I couldn"t leave Brandy alone too long. She had too much fight in her, even as she turned to me.
As for breaking Pescoli"s spirit, it would have taken too long, been too dangerous. This is better, in a way. This chase. I can be satisfied leaving her in the forest now. I have my camera in my jacket, along with a small hammer and the note. I keep a copy of them with me-in my killing jacket-always.
I shift the coil of rope on my shoulder and feel a little zing of antic.i.p.ation in my blood, a rush of adrenaline that keeps me going, my legs striding easily, my lungs beginning to burn with the cold, dry air.
How will Grayson feel when they finally discover her?
Desperate?
Disheartened?
Furious?
All of the above?
Good!
Bring it on. I can"t wait until the cops find one of their own, naked and dead. Then they"ll get the message: Everyone"s vulnerable. Even you, Grayson, you sanctimonious p.r.i.c.k. Now do you think I"m not good enough? Just the pathetic son of an old lunatic and a wh.o.r.e of a woman who left them?
"Beware the scorpion"s wrath," I say softly and the warning seems to slither through the icy trees and across the frozen streams, making the forest shiver with antic.i.p.ation.
How often did my b.i.t.c.h of a mother whisper those very words before she hit me across my bare b.u.t.tocks with a slim belt that stung and bit into my flesh? How many times did she force me to stand waiting, trembling in the corner, without a st.i.tch on? Oh, I quivered and cried, antic.i.p.ating her attack. And as she struck, she told me about Orion and the sting of the scorpion which had killed the great hunter. Oh, yes, she repeated the story with great relish, savoring it, as much as the beating she inflicted.
Sick, horrid woman!
And I took it. All of her wickedness and wrath while dear old Dad turned a blind eye, then poured himself into a bottle so far and so deep that his sanity fled.
Oh, yes, Mother. You finally delivered your punishment until, at twelve, I turned the tables. I was as tall as you were, and as strong. I refused to strip. Grabbed that belt and swore I would kill her if she ever tried to hit me again!
But then, you had one more trick up your sleeve. One more humiliation in store for me.
You walked out of the house and died less than a week later. Got the last laugh by leaving me alone to live with a drunken old man who believed in aliens. And I got to suffer the pity and scorn of the community.
I"ve heard them talk behind my back all these years. Whisper to each other. Laugh about the old goat and his sorry boy.