Edge of Midnight (McClouds & Friends #4)(50)

“Halfway to Orem Lake. Moving steadily at fifteen miles an hour.”

He topped the rise that led down the rough logging track. “Make the calls, Davy. If this guy wastes me, you have to help them find her.”

“Do not say shit like that!” Davy snarled. “You’re armed, right?”

“Not really, but too bad for me. Whatever.” He stepped on the gas.



Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. “Rise and shine, babydoll.”

Liv struggled slowly to the surface at the banging sound, the summoning voice. She was afraid to open her eyes. Something terrible was waiting for her. She could feel it, crouching. Waiting to leap out.

She opened her eyes, and it all rushed back, together with a crippling jolt of fear. She locked her jaw to stifle the whimpering.

Her wrists burned. They were bound with hard plastic strapping, like the ratcheted tie on a heavy duty garbage bag. There was tape over her mouth. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream, could barely breathe.

It was dark. Faint light filtered in, from a small, dirty window. From jagged cracks in the rough plank walls. The place stank of rot, mildew, and the sharp odor of fresh plastic tarp.

“Right on schedule,” said a rasping voice.

She jerked her head around, staring wild-eyed at the hooded nightmare looming over her. She could smell his sharp, skunklike musk from the ground. He was holding a big, ugly hammer.

He leaned over her body, and swung the hammer against the wall above her, bam. She twisted to look. A nail. That could not be good.

“OK, darling. Let’s get you into position.” He grabbed her bound wrists, jerking her up with a force that almost dislocated her shoulders, and hauled her back against the wall, then stretched her arms up and hooked the plastic cuffs over the thick nail sunk into the two-by-four.

“Now hold real still, babydoll. Or I’ll mash your fingers into jam.”

Bang. She tried not to flinch as he swung the hammer one more time, bending the head of the nail up into a cruel hook.

He sat down cross-legged next to her. The position was surreally casual and friendly. He patted her leg, and peeled off his leather gloves.

“Am I too scary with the mask?” He yanked it off. “Is this better?”

Oh, no, it was not better. It was so very much not better, that he had no intention of leaving her in any condition to identify him. Her head throbbed, her stomach churned. There was a flat, metallic taste in her mouth, from whatever he had drugged her with.

She had never seen this man. He was in his mid-forties, barrel chested as a comic book villain. His shoulders and arms were swollen with muscle, his belly thick with fat. He wore an overly tight black T-shirt. His face might have been beefcake handsome when he was younger, but it had coarsened, puffy under the eyes, skin pitted, broken veins. The way he looked at her body made her curl into a ball.

“Oh, no, sweetheart.” He pushed up her blouse ’til his fingers found warm, shrinking skin. He pulled out a wicked looking knife.

Liv’s blood froze. His shiny lips stretched out over big teeth. “We need to talk.” His tone was conversational. She stared at him, blinking.

He laughed. “Oops. I forgot all about that little detail.” He grabbed the tape on her mouth and ripped it off.

Air hit her dry throat, making her cough and hack. She barely recognized the thin, high, quavering voice as her own. “Who are you?”

“I’m the one who asks the questions.” He touched her face with the tip of his knife, tracing patterns on her cheekbone.

She stared, hypnotized, at the blade. It tickled. Her mind raced. What could she know that would interest him? She was a librarian, for God’s sake. A would-be bookseller. What could she say that would keep her alive long enough to hope for rescue?

Yeah, right. She had organized her own doom, sneaking away hours before anyone might sound the alarm. “What do you want? Did you send the e-mails? And burn my store? And set that bomb?”

“Of course. Who else loves you so much?” His voice had a singsong lilt. “Don’t bother screaming. There’s no one around for miles.”

“You were watching me?” She tried to swallow. “This morning?”

“I’ve been watching you for weeks,” he said. “It was all so easy. You sneaky girl. You crept off all alone. Silly Olivia. I put pressure switches under all the car seats. I knew the second you got into that car. I thought of everything, you see. It’s because I care so much.”

His friendly tone was a bizarre contrast to the senseless things he said. “Listen up, babydoll. We have to be brisk, if we want time for the passionate physical encounter that I’ve been dreaming of.” He giggled when she cringed away from him. “I love it when they play hard to get.”

“What do you want to know?” she whispered.

He pressed the tip of the knife under her ear. She stared at his knife hand, frozen. “Where are the tapes?” he asked.

She blinked, utterly blank. “Tapes?”

The knife broke the skin. A bead of blood trickled down her neck. Hot, slow and ticklish. “It’s not in your best interests to play dumb.”

“I swear, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The man heaved a theatrical sigh. “Tell me what McCloud told you. Tell me about his notebook. What was in it, where it went.”