Dead Right (40 page)

The blow surprised her, rocked her head back. As the sting radiated through her entire body, she blinked up at him in shock. “Why—” She couldn’t get the rest out.

He smiled, obviously enjoying the violence. “That was the wrong thing to say, ‘Thank you, Master,’ would be correct. Would you like to try again?”

The lift in his voice was deceiving, and she knew it. He wanted her to refuse. And she longed to do so. But in order to escape, she needed to stay as able-bodied as possible.

“Thank you, Master,” she murmured from between gritted teeth.

“That’s better. See? You’l learn. Pretty soon you’l be begging me for al kinds of favors. If you’re a good little girl, I might even unchain you now and then.”

Unchain
her? Fighting tears of shock, anger and disbelief, she watched him bend over his bag. “Ah, here it is,” he said and pul ed out a spiked col ar. “No sex slave is complete without one.”

23

“H
e doesn’t have an address book,” Clay caled impatiently.

Hunter knew Madeline’s stepbrother wanted to be out, actively searching for her. Taking the time to go through Ray’s mobile home heightened his anxiety. And Hunter could understand why. With each passing minute, Ray could be taking Madeline farther away from them. But they couldn’t drive aimlessly. They had to track him. It was their only hope.

“Then dig around for scraps of paper, anything with a name or a number on it,” he said. “Classified ads.

Receipts.”

“Did he pack?” Clay asked. “Are his clothes gone?”

It was difficult to tel . To Hunter, it looked as if Ray had left in such a rush that he hadn’t taken much with him.

“There’s a receipt on the kitchen floor,” Clay said a moment later. “It’s from the hardware store.”

“What’s the date?”

“Today.”

There was nothing in the master bedroom to indicate where Ray might’ve gone, so Hunter went into the room with the computer. Maybe he hadn’t looked careful y enough when he was here before. It was possible that Ray had exchanged e-mails with someone or visited a site that would tel him something. “What’d he buy?” he asked as he clicked through Ray’s “sent” folder.

“A chain and a spike.”

Containment objects. Hunter paused long enough to rub a hand over his face. Ray was likely seeking privacy, someplace he could take Madeline and—

He wouldn’t even think of the possibilities. But he knew what they were. The screen saver—and the porn sites on his computer—told him exactly what Ray wanted.

The apathy that had overwhelmed Hunter after his divorce had evaporated, leaving him in a world of feeling, a world of hurt. He was desperate to think more quickly, be smarter, work faster.

As he’d noticed earlier, Ray’s e-mail contained mostly spam. There were a few personal e-mails from other men, offering to sel lewd pictures. But Hunter ignored it al , remaining intent on only one thing—finding any information that might lead him to Madeline.

Where had Ray taken her? There had to be someplace he thought it would be safe….

“Anything?” Clay asked.

“No.” Panic and disappointment col ided. Hunter had nowhere else to look. They had to find
some
clue to Ray’s destination. But Ray’s computer told him nothing. The pervert had visited a long list of porn sites. That was al . No

—

And then he saw it. What he’d been searching for al along.

www.TNcabins.com

What to do…what to do…
Ray rapped his knuckles nervously on the wobbly kitchen table. He’d put the col ar on Madeline, just to show her what she was in for. He liked the fear that entered her eyes when he pul ed it so tight she could hardly breathe. It made her close her eyes and concentrate on
living.
Made her realize just how tenuous the line between life and death real y was—and that he was the one who’d decide if and when she crossed it.

That was power. It made him feel invincible…and a little out of control. She was completely vulnerable to him. As vulnerable as Rose Lee had been. He actual y felt more excited than he had before, because now
he
was in charge. Not the reverend.

How would Barker have liked his darling Maddy wearing that col ar?

Ray grinned. He would’ve hated it, of course. Hated that what he’d started had eventual y consumed Maddy, too.

And yet there was a part of the sick bastard that would’ve loved it. Loved it as much as Ray did. Maybe he would even have joined the fun.

Ray imagined Madeline’s breasts naked to his view as she writhed on the bed, struggling to breathe. Their first experience would be beautiful. Perfect. He’d do whatever he wanted to her while she whimpered beneath him.

But…that would have to wait. It was getting dark, and he had no groceries or candles for light. He hadn’t gotten that far before he’d run across her. He’d already col ected what he needed from home and was driving to her cottage to stake out the place, to decide how and when he’d grab her

—and to break a basement window if he found her house empty so he could get in. He’d planned to return after dark, when he was completely ready. To take her so quietly that Hunter Solozano, if he was there, wouldn’t even know she was gone.

But then she’d pul ed out of her street and driven right past him. And she’d been alone.

So he fol owed her.

When she stopped at the farm and he realized everyone was gone, it was simply too good an opportunity to pass up. Which meant he’d had to alter his plans and come straight to the cabin. He couldn’t stop along the way once he had her in the back of his truck. It was too risky.

Someone might’ve seen the tarp move or heard her groan.

He’d done the right thing, he told himself. He had the rope and tarp and the col ar. And he could go shopping now, before the stores in this remote area closed. He didn’t want to leave her, but if he didn’t, they’d both go hungry until morning—and his stomach was already complaining.

Might as wel get comfortable before starting his binge, he decided. He wanted to buy a Polaroid camera, anyway, and some Presto logs and lighter fluid—enough for several days. Then he could give Madeline his ful attention. And he could record their best moments on film for his new Internet business.

The chair squeaked on the wooden floor as he got up and went to his bag. There, he found the bottle of sleeping pil s he’d taken from his medicine cabinet. They’d insure she’d be here when he got back. But how many should he give her? He only wanted to knock her out for a few hours, not incapacitate her for the rest of the night. That would be a real tragedy. Because he had big plans—plans for which he wanted her very much aware.

Clay knew the area better than Hunter did, so Hunter didn’t argue when he said he’d drive. They’d cal ed the Sevier County Sheriff’s Department, who’d agreed to send a deputy to the Misty Mountain Cabins. But they’d been told the cabins were rarely used this late in winter, that they were very spread out and that it’d take a while to visit them al .

So Hunter couldn’t relax. He was afraid the deputy wouldn’t arrive in time, afraid of what the deputy might find.

What were they real y dealing with?

Obviously, Barker had been a pedophile. He was in some of the pictures Clay had given him. But how did Ray figure into that? Hunter might’ve assumed Ray had kil ed Barker for molesting Katie and Rose Lee, but Barker had been around for seven years after Rose Lee’s death, which didn’t suggest the instantaneous reaction of a father who’d just learned that his preacher was molesting his daughter.

And the pornography on Ray’s computer clearly indicated that Ray was a sexual sadist himself.

The more he tried to piece the puzzle together, the more questions went through Hunter’s head. What had Ray done? And what was he capable of doing?

“Stop here,” Hunter said when he spotted the drugstore.

Clay looked up in surprise. “What?”

“I need to buy something.”

“We don’t have time. The cabins are seven hours away.”

They had no hope of saving Madeline. Ray had too much of a lead. Her fate depended on the deputy. But Hunter didn’t want to face that truth, let alone state it. “The deputy we cal ed should be there any minute. And this’l only take a second.”

Scowling, Clay hesitated. But then he pul ed into the parking lot. “Make it quick,” he said, waiting in the truck while Hunter ran inside.

Ray strol ed through the aisles of the mom and pop grocer with his duffle bag on his shoulder, studying the shelves, trying to calculate what he might be able to steal and what he’d have to buy. He had Bubba’s money, but he knew it’d be smart to make it last.

“Can I help you find something?”

A plump woman with curly red hair and a piggy nose smiled at him from where she sat on a stool behind the register. A smal television squawked on the counter in front of her, but he could hear the loud jingle of a commercial, which was probably why she’d turned her attention to him.

He considered lowering his voice and tel ing her what he real y wanted. But he figured she wouldn’t react wel if he asked for sex toys. And he couldn’t raise any suspicions.

“No, uh, these cucumbers wil do,” he said and returned her smile as he selected the biggest one on the produce table and put it in his basket.

“You just passing through?” she asked conversational y.

“No, I’m planning to stay for a few days.” He didn’t want to say any more than he had to, but she’d be able to tel by his purchases that this was more than a pit stop.

“Where ya comin’ from?”

“Nashvil e,” he lied.

“That’s a fun place.”

He pretended not to hear her as he moved to the smal dairy section, where he saw a tube of frozen cookie dough that was even thicker than the cucumber, and decided he might be able to make good use of it, too.

“That sweet stuff’s addicting,” she said.

He grinned. She had no idea.

The program she’d been watching came back on the TV. “Let me know if you need anything.”

He nodded, and she became absorbed in her show again.

He continued through the aisles as someone else entered the store, someone the woman knew, and they began to talk about a new bar going in next door. The woman didn’t want the bar anywhere close to her store and became so engrossed in tel ing her friend exactly why that she seemed to forget about him, which al owed him to slip several items into his pockets.

“I don’t want to arrive to broken beer bottles in my parking lot every morning,” she was saying as he stepped up to the register.

“I hear ya.” Her friend shook her head in sympathy and moved politely out of his way.

The woman told Ray his total. He paid and started to walk out, but then he saw something that caught his interest. There were several pairs of gold stud earrings hanging on a smal rack in the corner.

“How much are these?” he asked, holding a pair out to her.

“Six ninety-nine,” she said.

He remembered his mother piercing his sister’s ears using an ice cube and a needle. That method would work for more exciting body parts as wel , right?

He couldn’t see why not.

Putting them on the counter, he got out a ten-dol ar bil .

“I’l take some sewing needles, too.”

The knocking reached Madeline through a deep haze.

She was in a coffin, buried alive. Buried next to her father.

Her mind seemed to float freely, to see them both from some vantage point above, lying side by side. She, chalk-white but perfectly whole; her father, a macabre skeleton with only a few tufts of hair and bits of decaying skin. He looked gruesome, as gruesome as he’d ever looked in her nightmares. But now he didn’t frighten her. There was nothing she could do to get away from him, anyway. She couldn’t move. Her body remained immobile. Dead. As immobile as Bubba, lying prostrate on his living room floor….

But Madeline didn’t care. The pain was gone. So was the fear. There was no Ray, no threat, no motion or movement.

Just that persistent knocking. Where was it coming from?

“Hel o? Brian Shulman here. I’m with the property management company and I’m with someone from the Sevier County Sheriff’s Department. Anyone home?”

The voice filtered through Madeline’s head, sounding distorted and surreal and evoking an odd flutter of expectation in her stomach. Sheriff’s Department. That was good, wasn’t it? Something told her she should respond to it, but she couldn’t find her voice, wasn’t even sure why she needed to.

Besides, what if it was a trick? What if it was real y Ray?

He’d said that if she tried to escape, he’d punish her severely.

She was better off staying where she was, hidden in the dark…hidden in the closet.

Closet?
A memory surfaced—Ray forcing her to swal ow some pil s, moving her into the bedroom closet and piling blankets on top of her before shutting the door—and she realized she wasn’t in a safe place at al . She wasn’t dead, either. She was in danger because he was coming back. He’d promised he would. And he’d tighten the col ar when he did.

Madeline could feel the weight of the leather around her neck. He’d moved it one notch, so she wouldn’t suffocate while he was gone, but it stil cut into her skin. That was why she’d swal owed the pil s, which had left such a terrible, bitter taste in her mouth. She’d been trying not to, but she could hardly breathe, had already been on the verge of blacking out.

She tried to remember what’d happened in those last few seconds. Where had Ray gone? When would he be back? And what should she do now?

She couldn’t think straight. She felt numb, groggy.

“Sheriff’s Department,” a different voice said. “Hel o?

Anyone here?”

Me!
She tried to scream that one simple word but no sound came out. She could hear someone moving around, opening doors, striding down the hal —and imagined whoever it was directing a flashlight around each room.

“Mr. Harper? Anyone here?”

The man who possessed that voice opened the door to her room. Madeline told herself to move, to hit her head against the wal , to shift, to kick—
anything
to let him know where she was. But she was completely paralyzed. There wasn’t a muscle in her body that would respond to her brain’s command, despite the intensity of her efforts.