A Billionaire's Redemption(43)

Let’s go,” Gabe bit out.

* * *

Willa looked over at James Ward, who was staring grimly at the winding road ahead through a pounding rain. His route today was slightly different than hers yesterday, but the road was still steep and winding, made even more treacherous by the rain. He was driving like a madman through the arroyos and canyons where he’d nearly succeeded in killing her last night.

Oh, wait. He was a madman.

Lord, Willa must be terrified. To have the horror repeat itself like this, for her attacker to get hold of her again—it must be every victim’s worst nightmare.

* * *

James, do you want me to drop the charges against you? Is that what this is all about? Because if you want, I’ll do it. My life has moved on, and I’ve gotten past what happened between us.”

You think dropping the charges removes the stain on my reputation?” he snarled.

If you’re worried about your reputation, why are you kidnapping me? This won’t help matters, you know,” she said reasonably. “Why don’t we just go back to town, get a cup of coffee and talk this over?”

He glanced over at her, and she recoiled from the flat, blank, almost reptilian quality to his eyes. She asked carefully, “How are you feeling, James?”

Head hurts,” he whined in a weirdly childlike voice. “Pain won’t stop. Brain’s exploding from the inside out. Keep telling them. But they won’t believe me. Damned head’s splitting in two.”

Do you want to pull over and rest a little? I can drive you to a drugstore. Get you some pain relievers.”

All your fault,” he mumbled. The van swerved dangerously close to the edge of a steep drop-off and she let out a little squeal of fear as he jerked the van back onto the road.

She thought fast. Headaches. Stress, maybe? Lack of sleep? Were they associated with mental illness, maybe? She had to keep him talking. Get him to reveal what was really going on with him. Figure out a way to diffuse his unreasoning rage.

He drove on in silence. His foot must be mashed down on the accelerator all the way to the floor. The only thing keeping them from tearing along this road like a bat out of hell was undoubtedly the steepness of the grade and the van’s underpowered engine. But as it was, they careened around every curve, and it felt like they were going to skid out and plunge over the edge of the road to their deaths at any second.

Terrified beyond the ability to speak, Willa clung to the armrest and braced her feet against the floorboards, praying for all she was worth just to make it to the Vacarro Field alive.

Finally, they topped the highest of the ridges and the road began to go downhill. Thankfully, on this side of the canyon, the road’s curves were gentler and finally straightened out completely. The van picked up speed and tore along the asphalt road at nearly a hundred miles per hour.

When her heart came down out of her throat enough to speak, she asked, “What’s so significant about the Vacarro Field to you?”

He glanced over, and the van careened to the right. “Eyes on the road!” she blurted.

He sneered. “Damned schoolteacher. So self-righteous. Willa Merris, goody two-shoes. So charitable and noble. Giving up wealth to teach goddamned brats.”

I don’t teach because it’s noble. I do it because I love kids. I love teaching.”

Bitch.”

We were talking about the Vacarro Field,” she prompted, trying to steer his erratic thoughts back to the topic at hand.

Son of a bitch thought he’d screw us good, didn’t he?”

My father?” she guessed. Most times when someone got called an SOB around her, he’d been the recipient of the epithet.

Tried to buy us out. Rob us blind. And my old man was gonna do it, too. But my mother wouldn’t let him. Good thing, or the bastard would have succeeded.”

My father tried to buy the Ward interest in the Vacarro wells?” This was the first she’d heard of that.

Tried to steal ’em, more like.”

Why do you say that?”

Offered about a tenth of what they’re worth.” He mumbled incoherently under his breath for a few seconds and then his words became clear again. “Gotta have that money. Save my ass. Debts. Bad investments. Not my fault. Who’d a’ thunk those calls would get exercised. Damned bankers...”

She frowned, confused. “If you were in financial trouble, why didn’t your family take my father’s offer and pay off your debts?”

Oh, that’s what you’d have liked, isn’t it?” James exploded. “Screw us when we’re down. That’s how you Merrises operate. But I screwed you, instead!” He laughed wildly, and Willa recoiled from him. Well, at least she knew now why James had raped her. He was getting even with her father. She supposed that was better than James having actually had it in for her.

God, that smell...” James said in a singsong voice that trailed off like an old woman drifting off to sleep midsentence.

Startled, she glanced over at him. “What smell?”

Sweet. Ahh, God. My head,” he moaned. He took both hands off the steering wheel to grasp his head in both hands. Willa dived across the space between them to grab the wheel as the van drifted left out of its lane and toward the opposite shoulder of the road at a hundred miles per hour.

James!” she cried. “Focus.”

He inhaled loudly and deeply through his nose as she lay half across him, frantically steering the vehicle. This time his voice was a preternaturally deep growl. “Gonna make you bleed. Peel you like a grape. Make you scream.”

What the heck was going on with him? It was as if he was inhabited by two people. And right now the crazy, violent one had firm control of him. He shoved her away and took the wheel once more. She sat up cautiously, watching him like a hawk. He seemed to be in control of himself and the vehicle once more.

Have you ever been diagnosed as schizophrenic?” she asked conversationally.

He snorted with laughter. “Think I’m crazy? Yeah. Me, too. Been telling them something’s wrong with my head. Mommy dearest says it’s stress. That you damned Merrises are out to wreck my life. Maybe she’s right...” He trailed off into another bout of mumbling.

Oh, yeah. He was off his rocker, all right.

She leaned forward ostensibly to retie her shoe, but out of the corner of her eye, she tried to spot his gun. There. Holster on his left hip. A surreptitious glance over her shoulder into the back of the van revealed a big assault rifle with a sniper’s scope attached, a shotgun and at least thirty boxes of ammunition. It looked like he was planning for the last stand of the Alamo. A large nylon gym bag bulged in the back, too. No telling what was inside that puppy. Maybe his tools of torture. Her flesh cringed at what he might have in mind to do to her this time.

And this time Gabe wouldn’t be coming to her rescue. He’d made his choice, and it had not been her. She was on her own. A sense of futility and hopelessness swept over her. What did it matter what James did to her? Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if she died. It wasn’t like anyone would miss her.

Her chest felt like it had a big empty hole in it where her heart had been. The grief of losing the first and only man she’d ever loved was simply too much to bear. Maybe her last thoughts would be of him. Of how happy he’d made her when she’d thought they were together. It would be a nice way to go out. She made a silent promise to herself to keep him in mind when the end came.

She wondered idly what her father’s last thought had been. She blurted abruptly, “Did you kill my father?”

No!”

His answer was quick and startled. Spontaneous. He wasn’t lying. Purely to make conversation and keep that maniacal emptiness from creeping back into James’s eyes, she asked, “Who do you suppose did kill my father?”

He shrugged and she continued, “I could see my dad being in cahoots with Sheriff Burris over something, and the two of them getting themselves killed together. But that third victim. The young guy from out of state. I just can’t see how he fits in with the other two murders.”

Don’t know. Don’t care. Just glad the bastard’s dead.” His voice slipped a notch into madness. “I hope he suffered a lot.”

You mentioned the animals in my mother’s garden. Do you rip their heads off?” she asked on a hunch.

He looked away guiltily. “Don’t know nothin’. Don’t know how I got there. Don’t remember...”

Was he having blackouts? Committing violent acts while out of his right mind? Maybe suffering from a multiple-personality disorder?

She subsided, out of ideas for what to talk about with him for the moment.

You’re going to suffer, you know,” he said matter-of-factly. “Sins of the father, and all. You get to pay. My head’s going to start hurting and you’ll end up just like those critters.”

With her head torn off? Horror filled her throat with acid bile. “So this is all about my father?” she forced herself to ask calmly. “You’re admitting that I never did anything to you?”