Rising Heat (97 page)

There you go, Tracy, you can do it, I told myself.

Or maybe not.

I didn’t see anything at first and I wondered if I’d just fooled myself. It was dark. Pitch black. It was like reality was folding in on itself.

What was going on? Why couldn’t I see anything? Was this a dream? No, more like a nightmare. I wanted to reach out and touch my eyes, make sure my eyelids were open, but my hands wouldn’t move.

Shit! Why wouldn’t my hands move?

I started to scream the question, but my mouth was so dry it felt like it was stuffed with cotton. I ran my tongue against the back of my teeth. No moisture. Not even a drop. I tried to work up enough saliva to swallow. I wasn’t sure if it was the fear I felt or the after effects of whatever had been placed over my mouth, but I couldn’t even work up enough spit to do that.

Then my memory returned.

I remembered a rag or a handkerchief, maybe a bandana being held over my mouth. I remembered that it smelled funny, that I felt dizzy and disoriented after I’d inhaled.

Chloroform? Was it possible? Did they even make that anymore? And if they did, how in the hell had the—?

No!

A shiver went through me.

Don’t go there. Not yet. First things first.

I forced the panic back and then forced my lips to move. I opened my jaw a little, and brushed my tongue over my lower lip. I still couldn’t see anything, but I couldn’t figure out why.

And then I noticed the smell. Not a smell really, just odors. A hint of… what was that? Oil? Was I in a garage? No. I also smelled dirt. Like the ground smells after it rains, but not as fresh.

I tried hard to focus. I didn’t know what I was thinking. My brain felt foggy and sluggish.

I inhaled again, trying harder to place the scent. It smelled musty and moldy and damp. A chill swept through me and I shivered. It was cool wherever I was, and goosebumps rose along my flesh, in my extremities and made its way up my spine. I tried to make a noise, but all I managed was a very soft croak.

I clenched my fingers, trying to make them move. They felt stiff, but I managed. Where was I? How long had I been here? Wherever
here
was. Once again, I tried to raise my hands, but I couldn’t and then I realized why. My wrists were tied by something and that something was holding my hands close to a hard and unyielding surface. It didn’t feel like rope. Then what?

A wave of fear washed over me. Not fear, panic. Unadulterated, pure, primal panic. My heart pounded. I felt my pulse throbbing in my neck, which didn’t do anything for my horrendous headache.

Then I remembered. Opening the door to the motel room, thinking Hawk was at the door, standing on the other side. I had unlocked and pulled the door open, a smile starting to curve my lips. I was glad to see him, but I never did. Something hit me, hard. Something pressed down over my nose and mouth, something that made me feel sick and dizzy. I didn’t remember anything after that.

Oh my God. Had the stalker finally made his move? Is that what happened to me? The stalker-killer got tired of toying with me and finally made his move? The freak who slashed throats and cut out hearts? A sound escaped from my throat. A sound that conveyed my terror and my desire to be free, to be anywhere but here.

I tried to pull my hands from whatever bound them, but the binds were unyielding, forcing my arms down on a hard, wooden surface. The fog was slowly lifting from my brain.

A wooden surface. A table?

My chest rose and fell with frantic breathing as I tried to struggle. I tried to move my legs, but they were also tied down. I felt the binding at my ankles. I managed to lift my hips off the table, maybe an inch, but that was about it. I was sore all over, probably from the massive force that barreled into me and knocked me to the floor before I could scream.

Tears formed in my eyes, but I blinked them back. I couldn’t succumb to my growing panic. I had to think. Plan. I forced air into my lungs. Forced it out. Gradually, I calmed down and became more aware of my body. Then, I tried to get a better understanding of my surroundings.

My fingers searched the surface beneath them. It was a table. Rough, maybe some peeling paint, like an old picnic table or something. I moved my head, turned to look to my left, but still didn’t see anything. Repeated the process to the right. It was pitch black. Whatever this place was, no light offered me any indication of the location. Or what was around me.

I tried to still my breathing, to listen for any sounds around me. It was eerily silent, but was I alone? It took everything I had, but I held my breath for several moments, straining to hear anything, near or far. Nothing.

I released my breath, choked back another cry of fear, and then clamped my lips tightly together. I knew if I screamed once, nothing would stop the screams that would follow. Could a person scream themselves to death?

Terror washed over me in waves. I trembled so badly that I felt my muscles jerking and I couldn’t make them stop. I had no idea where I was and no idea what the stalker-killer planned to do to me. Oh, I had an inkling that I wasn’t going to make it out of here alive, but I didn’t want to think about that. I had to concentrate, try to think of a way to get out of this.

I focused on the pounding of my heart. I was alive. As long as I was alive, I had a chance. Fear of the unknown was right there next to relief, but I was still breathing. Still, I knew it wouldn’t take much to tip me over the edge, to the point of that endless screaming that would lead to nothing but my loss of hope.

Hawk. At this moment, I truly regretted firing him. I wanted to throw myself into his warm embrace, feel his strong arms wrapped around me. Just like I’d wanted to do when I opened that door.

That led to more questions. How had the stalker found me? Why had I just assumed it was Hawk at the door? Yes, the muffled voice on the other side of my motel room door had identified himself as Hawk, and I’d been expecting him. But considering the circumstances, shouldn’t I have been more suspicious?

Hindsight was wonderful, wasn’t it? Wrong. Hindsight could kiss my ass.

I’d assumed it was Hawk at the door and so I’d opened it. I couldn’t go back and undo it now. I felt stupid and foolish, but I had been so relieved to think that he had come to save me that I hadn’t thought twice about—

I heard a noise. It sounded like it came from somewhere above me. Where was I? Underground? In a basement? A garage? If I was, I couldn’t figure out why I was smelling dirt. A root cellar?

And then I heard a door close. Not exactly loud, but not like someone was trying to hide either. So wherever I was, it was isolated. My kidnapper wasn’t trying to be too quiet. Footsteps. Definitely above me. My heart raced even faster, literally thundering in my chest now. For some stupid reason I thought of the Charlton Heston scene in that old movie, Ben-Hur. You know the one, the chariot race? That’s how hard and fast my heart pounded. Oh God. I didn’t want to die!

Then I heard another door, this one closer, much closer. Above me. A thin shaft of light oozed into the dark space.

“Close your eyes.”

The voice was thick and muffled. A hoarse whisper almost, but a bit louder, more threatening, filled with dire warnings. At least that’s how I heard those three words. Those three little words that sent a renewed shiver of dread through me. Was this it? Was the person coming downstairs going to slit my throat, stab me in the heart, and then cut it out?

“Close your eyes!”

The demand was even more forceful. Harsh and guttural. How the hell could he tell that my eyes were wide open from where he stood? How did he know I was staring up at that narrow shaft of light with a combination of horror and what I would like to think was defiance? Not that I was in a position to defy anyone, but I knew that even if I did what he said, I wasn’t going to live.

“Close your eyes or I’ll cut them out.”

Oh my God. Even though every instinct in me told me not to do it, I did. I closed my eyes and squeezed them tightly shut. He could cut my eyes out even if I did what he said, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. But every second of reprieve and every second that I breathed was another second that I lived. Whether I was going to end up regretting that had yet to be seen.

I still couldn’t figure out how he knew whether my eyes were closed or not. Maybe he could see me from the top of the stairs. In the brief instant I’d looked up into that dim stream of light, I’d seen stairs rising against a dirt wall. I was in a basement, or an old root cellar of some sort. And I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I screamed no one would hear me.

My trembling threatened to jerk me off the table. Only the bonds held me down. My breath came in sharp gasps. I clenched my jaw tightly to prevent myself from screaming my lungs out, not that it would do any good. I had a feeling that doing so would only amuse the man.

The man.

More questions assaulted me. Ones I had no answer to. Who was he? Who was this guy and why had he targeted me? What were his plans? Was he going to torture me? Would he rape me before he killed me? I had seen what he did to his victims and didn’t even want to consider what I’d look like in a crime scene photograph.

For a second, I wondered what Hawk was doing. What would he think when he got to the motel and realized I was gone? Would he think I’d just left or would he make the connection… that the stalker had finally got me?

The footsteps came down the steps slowly, one heavy step at a time. My heart pounded, and with each step my fear increased. How much fear could a person take before their heart just gave out? Could you die from fear? How could I even think of things like that when the stalker was getting closer to me with every step?

He wasn’t far away now. I heard him breathing. Heavy, as if he’d just exerted himself. And then I had to wonder. Exerted himself doing what? Another step, and then another. My breath came so fast I was afraid I would hyperventilate. My head pounded. I fought against the overwhelming urge to shriek. I had watched enough true crime shows to know that a lot of killers got off on hearing their victims scream. I would do my best not to give him that pleasure, that satisfaction.

And then I felt his presence right next to the table upon which I lay. My breath caught in my throat and then I felt his hand placed over my eyes. It was warm, slightly clammy, and strong. A squeak erupted from my throat.

“You want to see me, don’t you?”

Again the deep, guttural whisper. Who was he? I couldn’t place the voice, not that I was hearing it clearly.

“What… who are you?” My voice came out raspy, the words difficult to form around my dry tongue.

“In due time,” he replied.

I heard the sound of cloth brushing against cloth. In the next instant, he lifted his hand from my eyes. Instinctively, I opened them, but as soon as his hand was removed, I felt something take its place. A blindfold. He jerked my head up roughly and adjusted it. Not a blindfold. A sleeping mask, the kind many people wear to keep out the light. Oddly enough, I caught the scent of lavender. A lavender scented sleep mask? What? For the briefest of seconds, I wondered where he bought it. Then I felt his hand on my hair, stroking it.

How could I be so easily distracted when I was… when I was about to be killed? Then I realized… my mind wanted me to think of anything but this.

He let go of my head and I winced as it fell back onto the table. I stiffened when I felt one of his hands on my leg, just above my knee. He squeezed gently, and then inched it slowly upward. Oh God, no…

I heard him laugh, a chuckle really, and then the hand left my leg and grasped my jaw. Hard. I bit my tongue and felt warm tears flood my eyes. His thumb caressed my cheek as he squeezed. I tried not to make a sound. As his presence hovered over me, I felt the warm brush of his breath against my mouth. And then his lips pressed down over mine, crushing them.

I couldn’t help it. I made a garbled, protesting sound in my throat and tried to turn my head away, but he squeezed harder, the pressure of his hand on my jaw tightening as he slightly lifted my head and then banged it back down onto the table. His breath wafted into my nostrils, tinged with the scent of coffee. My stomach roiled. Bile rose in my throat. I tried to struggle, but nothing would move more than an inch, not one part of me, not one muscle.

His lips left mine, but in the next instant, his tongue left a trail of cloying warm wetness from the bottom of my jaw up to my cheekbone. It cooled instantly. I cringed and tried to shrink back down into the table, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape.

And then, nothing. His hand left my jaw. I sensed that he had straightened and was now staring down at me, probably with a perverse smile on his lips.

“I have something for you.”

Once again, my heart trip-hammered in panic. What was he going to do? I couldn’t see, couldn’t even begin to anticipate his next action. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to know. I caught my breath when I felt something hard and cold at the base of my jaw, near my left ear. A poke. There was a twinge of pain, and then something warm trickled from the base of my ear down the back of my neck.

Blood. He had cut me. Not deep, not enough to severely injure, but enough to make me bleed.

“Why…?” I managed to gasp.

He made a noise in his throat, as if it was the most stupid question a person could ever ask. “Like I said, in due time.”

Then, to my immense relief, his footsteps retreated, clumping back up the stairs one at a time. With every step he took, I trembled more violently. My chest rose and fell, desperate to release the sobs I held back, but I kept telling myself not to cry.

Don’t cry.

Think.

Adrenaline surged through my veins, almost painful in the way it made my muscles react. Stiff and shivery, I jerked when the door slammed shut above me.

I moaned, even as I tried so hard not to allow myself to surrender to the sobs so desperate to escape. Where was Hawk? I needed Hawk! I made a mistake, had judged him without even allowing him to explain. I knew why I’d gotten so mad at him. Now I understood, more clearly than ever before, that this was inevitable. Hawk couldn’t have stopped it. Detectives Cutter and Westin couldn’t have stopped it. I couldn’t have either.