Rising Heat (99 page)

“Do you hear me, Hawk? I love you. Don’t ask me how it happened or when, but I do. And I don’t want you to die. I don’t want you to die because of me.” I paused, my head dropping back to the table, my muscles exhausted from the simple effort of holding my head up. I spoke louder. “So you better damn well wake up. Do you hear me, Hawk?”

Nothing but silence.

The thought seemed impossible, but as my heart ached with a myriad of feelings, I prayed that somehow, he would make it out of this alive.

T
ime passed. The pounding of my heart kept me company. I looked at Hawk every few seconds, but he remained still. How long would this go on? How long was the killer going to keep me — us — alive? Hours… days? I didn’t even bother trying to figure out anymore how he found me or Hawk. We were here. We were both helpless to defend ourselves and I truly and honestly didn’t see how either one of us would ever get out of here alive.

Every once in a while I tried to talk to Hawk, but he remained unresponsive. I kept watching his chest, making sure it rose and fell, to make sure he was still alive. Tears burned in my eyes. The thought of him dying left me feeling bereft. I didn’t want to die either. My wrists felt raw and bruised from my desperate attempt to get out of the plastic bindings. My ankles as well. But the pain of trying was more than worth the effort. Maybe, if I strained enough, I could, just maybe, stretch the bindings enough so I’d be able to slip a hand out. Maybe, if I struggled so hard that my wrists bled, the blood would serve as a lubricant.

Then what, Tracy? Then what are you going to do? The voice in my head taunted me. I had no weapon and would be no match for him. Still, I refused to give up. Clenching my fingers into fists, I lifted upward and jerked. I immediately winced at the pain that shot through the skin and the muscle beneath, but I gritted my teeth and kept trying. If I could only—

I heard a distant sound and froze, my heart pounding hard and fast. I began to shake my head in denial. No, it couldn’t be, I didn’t want it to be. He was back. I heard a door open and close, footsteps walking on the floor above me again. Wood creaking. Oh Lord. I startled when the door to the cellar banged open, and I watched as he descended the steps. I saw hiking boots, then his lower legs, then his hips, his torso, and his head. He still wore black clothing, but he looked different this time, a little less bulky. I was confused.

He still wore that horrid mask. He stood at the bottom of the steps, staring at me for several moments. He glanced at Hawk, stared at him for maybe five seconds and then turned back to me. It was then that I saw the hunting knife in his hand.

I felt dizzy and sick to my stomach. What was he going to do this time? Would he use that knife to taunt me again? Every time he used that knife, the cuts got a little more serious, a little deeper, drawing not only more blood, but more pain. Was that what he wanted? Did he want to hear me screaming in pain, begging for my life?

He took several steps toward the table and spoke from behind the mask. “Are you going to give me what I want?”

He said he wanted his heart’s desire, but I still didn’t know what he meant. I wasn’t about to ask him to clarify. What did he want me to say? I stared at him, wide-eyed, so scared I couldn’t even get a sound past my throat. He shrugged and took several steps closer to Hawk. He grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head, and then he placed the tip of the blade against Hawk’s throat, smack dab in the middle. The mask turned to look at me, as if waiting.

“No!” I gasped. “No, leave him alone! I’ll give you what you want… I’ll do anything, but please, leave him alone. Don’t kill him.”

He seemed to think about it a moment and then shrugged. Then he moved the knife from Hawk’s throat to his face. Touched the tip of the knife to his right cheekbone and drew it slowly down toward his jaw. Hawk didn’t move. Blood oozed from the edges of the wound and then flowed more freely. I tried not to panic and forced myself to remember that face and scalp wounds bled more profusely because there were so many capillaries close to the surface of the skin.

“Stop it,” I said. I don’t know why I kept thinking that my words would compel the freak to listen to me. But he did. He released Hawk’s hair, and his head dropped, his chin once again resting against his chest.

Holding the knife in front of him, the tip red with Hawk’s blood, he stepped toward the table. I stiffened, knowing that whatever came next wouldn’t be pleasant.

“You want to know why I chose you.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. The bastard stared down at me as if expecting an answer. “Yes,” I replied, unable to keep the tremble out of my voice even with that one-syllable word. I had a feeling that any attempt on my part to be brave was not going to affect this man standing in front of me whatsoever.

“I saw you the first day you moved to town.”

He held the knife over me, tracing the tip of it down my arm, but not hard enough to draw blood. It was as if he were caressing my skin with the knife rather than with his finger. I tried to pull away, but had nowhere to go.

“You intrigued me. So into yourself. So ignorant of anything going on around you.”

I didn’t understand what he meant. I tried to think back to my first day in Seneca. I couldn’t even remember if I went into town that day or if I just stayed at the house, busy unpacking. But he had told me something. He obviously lived in the area.

“If you were so interested in me, why did you kill those other women?” I barely got the words out, the last couple ending in a high-pitched squeak.

“I didn’t say I was
interested
in you. I said I chose you.” He lifted the knife, held it in front of my face, and then swept the flat side down my cheek. I swallowed, felt the pulse racing through my veins. The flat side of the knife continued downward, along the side of my neck, in between my breasts, down my stomach, then down along my hip. But at least he wasn’t—

And then I felt it. A deep burning pain in my right thigh, below my line of sight. Oh my God, he was stabbing me, slowly inserting the knife into my flesh. It hurt! My eyes stung with tears. Against my will, I made a long, groaning noise.

He hitched in a breath, as if excited, and then slid the knife deeper, slowly, one fraction of an inch at a time.

“Stop it!” I gasped. The word just burst out. What else did you say to someone who was hurting you? Please?

The pain deepened, from a burning to a sharp throb. I couldn’t tell how deep the knife was going or when he intended to stop. I did know enough about human anatomy to know that he wouldn’t hit a major artery or vein unless he went in deep—oh my God. I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth, trying to breathe past the pain.

Why? Why was he doing this? The knife froze, then slowly slid out. He showed it to me, holding the blade in front of my face. Blood covered the tip about two inches in depth. I felt warm blood dripping from the stab wound, but thank God it wasn’t spurting.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hit any major vessels or organs. That would be too quick and spoil all my fun.”

His voice was still muffled beneath the mask. I could see his lips moving, but I still couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, not that it would do me any good. Despite my fear, my terror of being tortured to death, I was also angry. Angry because this was happening to me. Angry because he had hurt Hawk.

I don’t know what possessed me, but all of a sudden the words passed my lips. I had thought them in my head, but now I was voicing them aloud.

“You’re a sick bastard.”

To my surprise, he chuckled, then straightened while he wiped the tip of the knife on my shirt. My stomach muscles clenched because I expected him to plunge it into me at any second. He didn’t. He took one step away from the table and tilted his head, as if examining a bug under a magnifying glass.

“I am neither sick, nor am I a bastard.” He glanced over his shoulder in Hawk’s direction. “Now him on the other hand…” He shrugged.

“Where am I?” Again, I didn’t expect him to answer, but it was a natural question to ask someone who’d kidnapped you, wasn’t it? And I wanted his focus off the man I loved.

He slowly shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You won’t get out of here alive and neither will he.” Once again, he tilted his head in Hawk’s direction.

“So why me?” I asked, my voice still shaky. “You killed those other women where they lived. You didn’t kidnap them. The police don’t think you followed them like you’ve been following me. Why?”

“Because I wanted to. Because I had to show them… show them all. How stupid they were, how incompetent. Even him.”

Again, he gestured toward Hawk. What was he talking about? I didn’t understand. I tried to focus, but the pain in my throbbing thigh distracted me.

“I left so many clues, but nobody could figure it out.”

Again, emotion trumped common sense. “A flower?” I said. “What does it mean? The drawing of a rose with a skull on it? And the tarot card?”

“They mean nothing to anyone but me.”

I was frustrated, frightened, and perhaps a bit impetuous from fear. “Then how do you expect anyone to figure it out?” I exclaimed. “What do you want from me?”

His arm moved, fast. I wasn’t expecting it and I screamed as the knife plunged deep into my left forearm. I felt the impact, startled by the suddenness of it. My eyes widened in horror as I lifted my head and saw that the knife had gone completely through, the point embedded into the wood beneath me. I screamed again.

Oh my God! To my surprise, I didn’t see blood gushing from the wound. It oozed around the edges, but didn’t gush. I stared in nauseous dismay at the sight of the knife sunk deep into my flesh. Had he struck bone? I had no idea. I didn’t feel any pain, probably because of the shock. Then, a few seconds later, my nerves responded. Sharp, stabbing pains radiated from the wound down to my fingertips and up to my shoulder.

I gasped and literally felt the blood drain from my face and imagined it flowing from my wound. For a second I was afraid I was going to throw up.

“Better not puke,” he said calmly, reading my mind. “You might aspirate into your lungs.”

With that, he turned and headed for the stairs, leaving the knife embedded. I tried to breathe slowly, evenly, but I couldn’t. There was a damn knife pinning my arm to the table. I couldn’t move it. It held my arm down against the tabletop more effectively than the plastic cuffs.

My heart pounded loudly in my ears, accompanied by a ringing I couldn’t place. Would I die of fright? Could I die from pain? I didn’t think a person could die from pain, but what did I know? They probably wanted to.

I closed my eyes and tried to relax, tried to block the pain thrumming up and down my arm, nearly overwhelming me. The pain in my thigh was nothing compared to the pain I felt in my arm.

A horrifying thought struck me. I tried to wiggle my fingers. There, they moved, if only a little. Even that little bit of effort caused another surge of pain to shoot up my arm. At least he hadn’t severed any major nerves. And then, quite to my surprise, a laugh erupted from my throat. I was worried about nerve damage when he was probably going to kill me before this was over? Idiot.

A moan. Had that come from me? Had I made that gut-wrenching sound? Did that sound of pain come from my arm, from my leg, or because of what I felt in my heart and in my mind? And then I heard it again. That hadn’t come from me. That sounded like…

I turned my head, trying to swallow the nausea that rose in my throat as I saw the knife blade sticking up out of my arm. I forced myself to look past it toward Hawk. That sound had come from him.

“Hawk! Hawk, wake up!”

Ever so slowly, he seemed to be coming around. Another low moan once again wrenched from his throat as he tried to lift his head. His eyes were still closed, but he was trying. He managed to lift his head up off of his chest and pulled it back. I heard the sound when it bumped against the support beam behind him.

And then his eyes opened. He wasn’t looking at me, but somewhere in front of him. I could almost imagine his gaze trying to focus, to make sense of where he was, of how he had gotten here. It’s the same thing I felt when I first regained consciousness. I had no anchor, no landmarks, nothing to help orient me. But I could do that for Hawk.

“Hawk, it’s Tracy. Look over here, Hawk. Listen to the sound of my voice.”

Ever so slowly, he did. He slowly turned his head, still resting against the support beam behind him. Lethargic, stunned, probably not sure where he was or why he couldn’t move his hands. Then, to my surprise, he suddenly seemed all too aware of the situation. His narrowed eyes stared at me, and then widened. A myriad of expressions passed over his features. Disbelief. Concern. Would it be a cliché to say his face blackened with fury? If looks could kill, then the look in his eyes at that moment was one of the most terrifying sights I’d ever seen.

Without saying a word, he took in everything, or so it seemed to me. Enraged, he tried to stand, but failed. Then he yanked at the bindings that captured his hands behind the beam. I saw his muscles straining, his chest bulging, the veins in his neck engorged with blood. He gritted his teeth and strained against his bindings. I saw fresh blood oozing from his right shoulder.

“Hawk, stop it! You’re bleeding again. Please stop!”

My voice seemed to get through his rage. Exhausted, he slumped back onto the chair, his head dipped low, chest heaving with the effort of his exertion. Then he looked back up at me.

“Tracy, you’re hurt. What has that sick bastard done to you? Who is he?”

“I don’t know, but he seems to be toying with me at the moment.” I sounded so flippant, as if the sight of the knife sticking out of my arm was nothing to me, nor the blood that surely darkened my pant leg, although Hawk probably couldn’t see that.

His face was bruised, fresh bruises forming over the ones he had received in the bar fight. “Hawk, I’m sorry—”

He jerked his head toward me, wincing with the effort. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”