Stripped (39 page)

Blake’s composure developed a hairline crack. “Yes.”

“Then how can you do this?”

Serena waited to see if Blake would answer. He seemed to be at a loss for words. “Both of you, get dressed.”

“My clothes are in the other room,” Claire said.

“Use some of hers. Come on, let’s go. No sudden moves.”

Serena wondered what the hell he was up to. Why get dressed? She had expected him to kill them both immediately, but Blake seemed to be following a more complex plan. That was fine. The more time she was alive, the more opportunity there might be to escape or overpower him.

She slid her legs off the bed, still trying to cover herself. Quickly, she pulled on the clothes she had draped over a chair—panties, T-shirt, jeans. She opened two of her dresser drawers and tossed clothes to Claire, who was shorter and smaller than Serena. The clothes fit loosely, and Claire rolled up the pant legs.

“Where are we going?” Serena asked.

Blake didn’t answer. He pulled a roll of duct tape from his rear pocket and tossed it to Claire. “Bind her wrists together tightly.”

Serena looked at Claire, and their eyes met. Serena extended her hands, palms together.

Claire seemed to be frozen. She had the tape in her hands but didn’t move.

“Do it!” Blake said.

Claire’s eyes looked pointedly away at something behind and below Serena, then directly back at her. She did it again. And again. Directing Serena’s attention to something.

It took Serena only a second or two to figure it out.

Her nightstand. Her
cell phone
.

“I can’t believe I trusted you,” Claire said bitterly.

“I’m sorry.”

“You said you’d
protect
me!”

“Shut up!” Blake insisted.

“You?” Serena asked. “You arrogant little bitch! You could have hidden behind all your daddy’s money, and instead you got
me
killed, too!”

“
Fuck you
!” Claire screamed, stepping forward and laying both hands on Serena’s chest, pushing her violently backward. Serena toppled off her feet, colliding with the nightstand as she fell, knocking everything on its surface to the floor. The lamp crashed, its bulb shattering, and books and keys littered the carpet. Serena twisted, landing on her face, but she already had the cell phone spotted as she hit her knees.

“Get up!” Blake hissed. “Not another word!”

“Fuck you, too!” Claire retorted. She turned and partially blocked Serena from view as she bent over and began wrestling her back to the ground. Blake leaped forward and pulled Claire back by the hair. Claire was still clawing for freedom.

“Enough!”

Blake pushed Claire away and fired his gun into a pillow on the bed. The explosion rattled the walls, and a huge cloud of feathers burst into the room, flying and floating over the two women.

“The next one kills Serena,” he said.

Both women froze. Claire was crying. “I’m sorry.”

“Get up,” Blake told Serena.

Serena got back to her feet, her face flushed.

“Now
tie her hands
,” Blake repeated to Claire.

Claire nodded meekly. She began wrapping the tape around Serena’s wrists.

“Tighter,” Blake instructed. “Go higher up.”

Claire frowned and did the next loops more tightly and continued rolling the tape until it was almost to Serena’s elbows. With a tilt of her head, she managed to raise one eyebrow at Serena, who replied with the barest nod. A whisper of a smile came and went on Claire’s face.

Claire finished, and Serena’s arms were locked in front of her, her hands dangling below her waist.

“Now her face. Gag her.
Do it
.”

Claire took a final strip of tape and placed it across Serena’s mouth.

“Push her down on the bed,” Blake said. When Claire hesitated, he broke between them and roughly shoved Serena down. She landed on her back on the bed, her upper body strangled for motion. She watched as Blake tied Claire’s wrists next and then gagged her, too.

“Come on,” he told them. “Let’s go. The two of you go first. If you try anything, you’ll both be dead, and probably some other innocent people, too.”

He took Serena by the shoulder and forced her to her feet. She left the bedroom with Claire immediately behind her. They proceeded down the hall and then downstairs to the first floor. Blake pushed past them and opened the front door. He went out onto the porch, his eyes darting back and forth. With a jerk of his head, he gestured them outside and then down the steps to the street.

An old white Impala was parked at the curb, blocking her Mustang.

Somehow Blake had managed to steal the car and the keys. Or maybe he had kept another car hidden away for the endgame. He used the remote control on the keychain to pop the trunk. Serena’s heart fell again, and she had visions of him taking the two of them out and dumping them in the desert to rot. Or burying them alive. His desire for revenge was so bitter that anything was possible.

“In the trunk,” he said. “Fast.”

Serena tried to bend at the waist and ease herself inside, but with her arms bound, she could barely move. Blake came up behind her, grabbed her T-shirt and belt, and lifted her bodily like a suitcase and dumped her into the trunk. The hard floor smashed her face, and she tasted blood in her mouth and tried to swallow it quickly down so she didn’t choke. Her head banged the roof as she tried to move. Serena rolled to the back, and two seconds later, the car rocked as Blake threw Claire inside next. She heard a muffled cry of pain. Claire’s body was wedged against her.

Blake slammed the trunk down.

A black, claustrophobic fog enveloped her. Barely able to move. Unable to talk. All she could do was hear.

And feel the cell phone wedged inside her jeans.

She heard the driver’s door open, but then the next sounds made no sense. A shout, a gasp, a bang. A clattering as Blake’s gun fell to the ground. The car bounced again as something large and heavy struck the Impala above them. Like something hitting, sliding, and falling.

It took her a moment to realize that the sound was Blake being thrown across the roof of the car.

Leo Rucci came around the front of the Impala, where Blake was on the ground, shocked and dazed. Blake realized that his hands were empty, that his gun was gone. He reached into his waistband for Serena’s gun and pulled it out, but the impact had dulled his reaction time. He wasn’t fast enough. As he drew the gun, Leo kicked it out of his hand. It skittered down the street as if it were gliding on ice and wound up near one of the squat palm trees lining the curb.

“Okay, you pussy, now it’s just the two of us. Think you can beat an old man?”

As the fog lifted from Blake’s head, he felt Rucci’s giant hands on his shirt, lifting him up off the ground and slamming him face first into the rear door of the car. Blood erupted from his nose, and his brain seemed to slap against the sides of his skull. The world spun again.

“You killed my son. You murdered him like a dog. Now I’m going to make sure every bone in your body is broken before I finally finish you off.”

Leo spun Blake around. The Impala’s window was streaked with blood. Leo’s fist reared back and came streaking forward, but Blake had recovered enough to duck down. Leo hit the window instead and grimaced. Blake used the moment to try to squirm free, but Leo still had an iron lock on his shoulder. He grabbed Blake’s neck with his other hand and yanked him off the ground.

Blake couldn’t breathe. Leo’s fat fingers squeezed off his air. Blake grabbed at the man’s hand and tried to dislodge him, but it was like trying to peel away a boa constrictor that had coiled around his neck in a death grip. With a grin, Leo wound up and sent a hammering blow into Blake’s abdomen. Blake felt his lungs balloon as the pent-up air tried to escape and had nowhere to go. He felt as if he had swallowed a hand grenade that had blown up inside him, as if his chest were being cut up from within.

He was beginning to lose consciousness. There was a roaring in his ears, and a million blood vessels felt as if they were popping at once. Blake thrashed. He continued prying at Leo’s hand and got nowhere.

“This is just the beginning,” Leo said. “We’re not even close to being done. Once you black out, I’ll take you somewhere nice and private.”

An image penetrated Blake’s brain. Something long and smooth. He couldn’t even see it anymore, but he could feel the cold touch of steel. His knife. It was still in his back pocket. Blake gave up trying to free his throat from Leo’s grasp and instead used his last few seconds of awareness to squeeze his hand behind him. His limbs didn’t even seem connected anymore. Whatever messages his brain was sending were scrambled. He kept reaching for his pocket and finding nothing, and his fingers began jerking spastically.

Finally, he touched the handle of the knife. He had an instant of crystal clarity, and his hand dug for it, grabbed it, and pulled it free. In a single, desperate swing, he buried the blade in Leo’s forearm and heard the man roar in pain like a wounded bear. Leo’s fingers unlocked from Blake’s neck, and sweet air rushed in. As Leo stumbled back, Blake’s mind cleared, and he kicked ferociously with his boot into the meat of Leo’s knee. The old man toppled to his side, a tree falling.

Blake still had the knife.

He pounced, aiming the next thrust of the blade for Leo’s chest. Leo saw it coming and grabbed Blake’s wrist as the knife came down. His grip was slippery and loose from the blood on his hand, and Blake easily pulled away and jabbed again. The tip of the blade sliced Leo’s shoulder, but before Blake could inflict further damage, Leo used his other arm like a baseball bat and swatted Blake away. Blake rolled several times and got up, shaken.

Leo pulled himself to his feet. Both of his arms were streaked in red. He was unsteady, but he waved Blake toward him.

“Come on, pussy. You need a knife to beat an old man? Come on. Try it again.”

Blake didn’t let himself be goaded. He held back, breathing heavily, trying to nurse his strength back and drive the fog from his brain. He kept the knife poised in front of him.

Leo inched forward.

“Pussy, pussy. Gino would have crushed you in a fight.”

“You should have seen his head split when I shot him,” Blake retorted, taunting him. “Like a hairy coconut.”

Leo charged, his voice bellowing in rage. Blake sidestepped him and swung his knife again, finding a target in the fleshy muscles under Leo’s shoulder blade. He thrust the knife brutally inward all the way to the hilt. Leo threw his head back and screamed. Blake tried to cut his way downward into Leo’s organs, but the man twisted away, and Blake lost his grip on the handle. Leo swung blindly and caught Blake on the side of his head with a massive curled fist. Blake felt the world spin again, and he collapsed to his hands and knees.

He felt something metallic under his fingers. His car keys, lying on the pavement. He cupped them in his hands and tried to get up.

Behind him, he heard a sucking, slurping sound. It was Leo, pulling out the knife. Blake turned around, lost his balance, and steadied himself against the side of the Impala. He and Leo eyed each other warily. Blood soaked Leo’s shirt, and he looked weak and pale, but he still had a substantial advantage in size, and now he had the knife. Leo’s hand was so big that the knife looked tiny in his grasp.

Blake crept backward, still leaning against the car. Leo matched him step for step. Blake’s eyes scanned the pavement, looking for his gun, but he realized he had lost it somewhere on the other side of the car. Leo seemed to read his mind. As Blake retreated toward the trunk, Leo shifted, moving around toward the front of the car.

If the gun was in sight, Leo would get it first.

They stared each other down from opposite corners of the Impala, Blake on the right rear, Leo on the left front, near the headlight. Blake saw Leo’s eyes sweeping the curb and driveway, and then a twisted smile formed on Leo’s lips. Confident. Nasty. Their eyes met again, and Blake knew Leo had found the gun. He watched the old man edge away from the car toward the landscaping in front of Serena’s home.

Blake pushed a button on the remote control of the car keys. With a soft chirp, the lock on the trunk unlatched.

Leo watched him with a puzzled expression, and then he understood. He turned away, and with a groan of pain, he bent to retrieve the gun.

Blake swung the trunk open and ducked, expecting a bullet to tear through the metal. He saw Claire’s blinking, terrified eyes looking up at him. With both hands, he pulled Claire out of the trunk in one smooth motion and then slammed it back down. He twisted Claire around and snaked one arm around her throat. He put his other hand on top of her head and held her skull firmly.

He didn’t see Leo at first. He backed up, worried that the man would creep around the side of the car to ambush him. He kept Claire in front of him and could feel her fear. She fluttered in his grasp like a bird.

Leo straightened up. He hadn’t moved. He was still near the front of the Impala, but he had the gun now, and he pointed it at Blake.

“Let her go.”

“You want to take the shot and risk killing her? Go ahead.” Blake began to push Claire forward as he nudged toward the Impala. His keys were still in his hand. “Drop the gun, Leo. Throw it away.”

There was hesitation in Leo’s eyes.

“I’ll crack her neck, Leo. One quick snap, and she’ll be gone.”

Claire struggled frantically in his arms, panicking. He held her tight.

“And so will you,” Leo told him. “You kill her, and I kill you.”

“And then Boni kills you for letting his daughter die. Is that what you want? Do you want to be the one to tell Boni that you let his daughter die right in front of you? Do you want to fail him like that?”

Frustration boiled over in Leo’s face. Blake knew he wanted to shoot, and he couldn’t. Blood was still flowing out of his wounds, too, and Leo wouldn’t be able to stand much longer. Blake kept coming forward, moving up on the driver’s door of the car.