Officer in Pursuit (33 page)

She was still gasping, fighting not to
suffocate, when he removed his hand from her mouth and pulled back
his hood.

* * * * *

“Kerry’s been gone a long time.” Grey
glanced toward the house, searching its brightly-lit windows and
front steps for any sign of her. There was none, and the night
loomed dark and vast beyond the house, lightless at eleven
o’clock.

There were thousands of stars
overhead, but their light was distant and there was only a sliver
of a moon.

Sasha was knocking back a cup of
cider. “Yeah. It’s a shame she missed the judging – your face was
really something.”

Grey frowned. “People are too
desensitized to zombies nowadays. I blame TV.”

It was unbelievable how scary people
thought the clown was. He looked like a guy who’d rolled in flour
and smooshed some of his mom’s lipstick on his face. Not exactly
the stuff of nightmares, unless you were an editor for a fashion
magazine.

“Whatever – you lost. I can’t wait to
tell Kerry.”

He looked toward the house again.
Still no sign of her. “I’m going to go check on her. After all
that’s happened, I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Hold on, Superman.” Sasha plucked the
end of his cape. “You don’t go barging into bathrooms checking up
on your girlfriend. That’s weird. I’ll go.”

“I wasn’t going to barge in. I was
just going to check inside the house.”

“If something’s bothering her, she’s
probably in the bathroom where she can have a little privacy. Let
me handle it.”

He let her march off toward the house,
resisting the urge to follow her. He watched as she climbed the
steps and disappeared inside.

She was inside the house for an
eternity. Grey was on the verge of saying to hell with it and going
in after her when she reappeared.

Alone.

Grey’s fear that Kerry was upset and
hiding in the house turned on a dime, transforming into something
much worse: fear that something had happened to her. That she
wasn’t in the house at all.

When Sasha reached him, her face was
white and the look in her eyes confirmed his fear.

* * * * *

Brad’s face – his barely-healed scars
– looked awful, but the real horror was in his eyes. They glinted,
even in the dark. He looked crazy. Crazier than Kerry had ever seen
him before.

“Look what you did,” he said, his eyes
locking with hers and sending fear drilling through her chest, hot
and sharp. “Look!”

She looked, not because
he’d told her to, but because she couldn’t
not
look. Linear scars crisscrossed
his face, about a dozen of them. They ranged in length from about a
quarter of an inch to two inches long. All were the angry, purplish
red of fresh wounds, and it was obvious that though they’d fade
over time, he’d never look the same.

The sight made her dizzy. She didn’t
regret doing what she’d had to in order to escape, but the fact
that she’d been forced to do that to someone made her sick. It
wasn’t like her – wasn’t a choice she’d ever wanted to have to
make. The scars would last forever, a testament to her desperation,
his viciousness.

“Did you think I was just going to let
you go?” He shook her like a ragdoll, and she struggled to keep her
head from bouncing against the tree too hard. “After you did this
to me? You’re out of your goddamn mind if you thought
that!”

The impact of his palm against her
cheek was like the crack of a whip.

An involuntary sound slipped out of
her – a cry as quick and sharp as his blow.

There’d been a time when she’d been an
expert at holding back such sounds, biting her tongue no matter how
bad it hurt. Apparently, she’d lost her edge.

“Go ahead, scream!” he said. “Nobody
will care. Nobody will come.”

She knew it was true. Screams were
floating from the neighboring property, and her own would be lost
in the sporadic chorus.

“You were lucky, Kerry. Lucky that I
loved you. I never would’ve really hurt you, because I loved
you.”

Apparently, a broken wrist, a couple
of cracked ribs and God knew how many bruises didn’t count as being
‘really hurt’. The worst part was, even after those wounds had
healed, the pain had lingered in places no one could see. She still
felt it, especially now that she had to face him.

It was like being back in their old
house – washing the dishes one minute and finding herself on the
floor the next, because she hadn’t made what he’d wanted for
dinner. Being dragged out of bed by her hair because he couldn’t
find a clean pair of boot socks for work. Seeing stars because
she’d talked to their male neighbor, and in Brad’s book, saying
hello just to be polite was tantamount to having an
affair.

“I don’t love you anymore,” he said,
shaking her again. “You hear that? I don’t fucking love you! And
until you can make me love you again, you’re going to pay for what
you’ve done. Every single one of these scars, Kerry – you’re going
to make up for them, or you’re going to hurt. No holding back. Not
anymore.”

There’d be no reasoning with him, no
talking her way out of this. There never had been, ever. During
their marriage, she’d made her share of attempts at talking him
down, at scoring enough brownie points to take the edge off his
anger. It had never worked, and she knew it wouldn’t work
now.

She wouldn’t degrade herself or waste
precious seconds by trying. And she wouldn’t make the mistake of
trying to punch her way out of this, either. Instead, she brought
up her knee as hard and fast as she could, driving it into his
crotch.

It worked. He stumbled backward,
swearing, and she could breathe again – move again.

She ran for it.

CHAPTER 25

“
You’re sure she wasn’t in
the house?” Grey’s heart was already beating in
double-time.

Sasha nodded. “I checked all the
downstairs rooms. I even walked upstairs and called for
her.”

“Shit.” Shit. Shit. His heart was
pounding now. He tried to think of where else she might have gone –
the parking lot, maybe, to get something from her car?

No, she’d parked in the small main
area, and he would’ve seen her if she’d walked out there. She
would’ve had to pass the cider booth.

Where could she have gone without him
seeing her – behind the house?

“Damn it. I’m going to look for
her.”

Sasha grabbed him by the arm before he
could hurry past her.

“Wait! Don’t go without telling me
exactly where you’re going to search. You know, in case something’s
up.”

She wasn’t smirking, wasn’t smiling.
Her eyes looked pained and lightless, and that set Grey even more
on edge.

“I’m going to look around the house.
Behind it, and at the edge of the woods.”

He didn’t think Kerry would be out
there voluntarily, and Sasha’s expression said she felt the
same.

“I’ll tell Henry. Maybe he’s seen her
in the parking lot. And if he hasn’t, he and I can help you
look.”

“All right.”

Grey hurried out of the cider booth
and toward the house, scanning the shadows it cast for any sign of
Kerry. God willing, he was getting all worked up over nothing, but
he couldn’t count on that. The events of the past three weeks
weighed heavily on him, and he couldn’t escape the feeling that
something had gone terribly wrong.

* * * * *

Kerry tripped over her mermaid tail.
That was all it took to shatter the split second she’d earned
herself, her chance at escape.

Brad’s fingers thrust through the mesh
and clasped around her ankle, as solid and dread-inspiring as a
leg-iron.

She kicked, but he dragged her
backward. Sequins were torn from her dress and landed glittering on
the pine needle floor like loose fish scales. She was reminded of
the scales scraped off by fishermen that always glimmered on the
wooden cleaning stations at the local fishing pier, and then a
sharp slap from Brad brought her back to reality.

“Goddamn it! When will you
learn?”

A familiar rage bloomed in her chest
as he grabbed her by her hair, yanked her to her feet.

“You dumb bitch! You dumb, crazy
bitch.”

She fought him. Punched and kicked,
giving it all she had because what choice did she have,
now?

It wasn’t enough – she wasn’t strong
enough. She was hurting him – he was even bleeding – but he was
relentless, and she couldn’t take him down. It was beyond
frustrating, and it fanned the flames of her rage.

Her anger melted the paralyzing edges
off her fear. She was afraid – deadly so – but that fear didn’t
hold her back. Instead, it goaded her on. She wouldn’t go with him,
wouldn’t do what he wanted, no matter what.

She ended up face-down in the pine
needles with his knee in her back. He put all his weight on her,
and she actually thought her spine might snap. That was her main
worry, until she felt cold metal against the side of her
neck.

“There’s not a goddamn thing about you
that I love,” he said, pressing the blade against her carotid, “but
I don’t want to do this. Don’t make me. Don’t make me,
Kerry.”

That was how he’d always talked –
acting like she was somehow forcing his hand whenever he hurt her.
God, she was sick of it!

She fumed, spit dirt and pine needles
out of her mouth, prepared to tell him to fuck off, it wasn’t her
fault. Never had been.

He yanked her up again by her hair
before she could utter a word.

Standing hurt her back so badly that
she forgot all about the knife and her sudden resolution to tell
him how it was.

He started dragging her along then,
moving with purpose, deeper into the woods.

She stumbled desperately, fighting the
crippling pain in her back. Looking toward the house, she
considered calling for Grey at the top of her lungs.

He might hear. Surely he and Sasha had
noticed by now that she’d been gone for too long. If she called his
name, he’d know it was her, know her scream wasn’t just part of the
haunted house. But then…

He’d come after her. Try to save her.
Get in a fight with a psychopath armed with a big knife and God
knew what else. He might lose. She knew he’d lay down his life to
help her as a matter of course, and the thought broke her heart.
She couldn’t let him do that.

This – Brad – was her burden to bear.
She wouldn’t let him hurt anyone else or ruin any other lives.
Unless she could escape him now on her own, her life was already
forfeit because of him. He was a monster she refused to unleash on
anyone else, especially the people she loved.

Grey, Sasha, Alicia, Henry and Liam –
they were her first real friends, her life, and they were all back
on the mansion grounds. All of them would come to her aid without
hesitating or weighing the consequences. She knew that, knew they
were courageous – they’d proven it beyond any doubt that
summer.

Now, it was her turn to be
brave.

* * * * *

Grey searched the perimeter of the
house, eyes sweeping the shadowed lawn. He started on the left side
and worked his way to the right, where the grass bled into a creek
framed by trees draped in Spanish moss.

There was a big gator that lived in
that creek – Brutus. The thought sent a chill down Grey’s spine,
but only for a second.

Kerry wasn’t an idiot – she wouldn’t
have gone for a stroll on the creek bank, or waded in. And that was
the only way she could’ve come into contact with the animal. It
wasn’t like the gator would’ve strolled into the house and dragged
her out. No, Grey was only worried about human threats.

“Hey.” A voice echoed from behind Grey
– male, familiar.

He turned to see Henry, but was
instead blinded by white light.

“Damn! Shut that thing
off!”

Henry lowered his super-powered
flashlight.

“Sasha told me Kerry’s missing. Any
sign of her?”

Now, Grey could see that Sasha was by
Henry’s side, a glittering devil shifting her weight from foot to
foot.

“No.” Grey’s sense of dread threatened
to choke him. Having Henry here didn’t make this all right. Nothing
would, except finding Kerry. “I’ve looked all around the
house.”

“Then let’s search the woods. She
never went out to her vehicle – I would’ve seen.”

Grey nodded. It was what he’d been
about to do on his own, without a light.

Shit. Henry probably had an entire
duty belt worth of stuff in his cargo pockets. Henry needed
him.

“Sasha,” Henry said, “you go find Faye
and ask if she knows where Kerry is. Then, wait down with the crowd
by the stage. Don’t leave the area.”