A Deadly Influence (Abby Mullen Thrillers #1)(68)

“Yeah.” Carver had already begun to seriously doubt their initial theory that Liam had anything to do with Nathan’s kidnapping. Then what was the connection between the two?

Maybe there was no connection. Maybe Liam was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.





CHAPTER 45


Nathan phased in and out of sleep. When he was awake, everything hurt. He shivered weakly, his throat parched.

But when he slept, it was worse.

Because he returned to that car, the blood spurting everywhere, splattering on his cheek. That terrible wet, gurgling sound, the driver spasming.

“Look what you made me do.”

When he’d walked down the road on the brink of exhaustion, the car had stopped for him at the side of the road. The passenger door opened, light shining on the driver’s face. Relief coursed through Nathan’s body. It wasn’t him.

“Jesus,” the driver said. “Are you okay?”

Nathan could hardly speak. He just cried.

“Are you lost?”

Nathan nodded, then blurted, “Can you call my mom?”

“Of course! You look freezing. Get inside. The heater’s on.”

Nathan did it without thinking, relieved to be out of the cold night air. The heater felt wonderful pointed at his face. He spread his fingers in front of it, feeling them thaw.

“How did you end up here?” the man asked, incredulous.

“I don’t know.” Nathan’s teeth chattered. “A man t . . . t . . . took me.”

“Okay, okay. Here, take this.” The driver took off his coat and arranged it over Nathan like a blanket.

“Let’s call your mom,” the driver said, rummaging in his pocket. “Are you getting warm?”

“Y . . . yes.” Nathan clumsily struggled with his shoelaces, taking the wet shoe off. He removed the wet sock as well, feeling the man’s eyes on him. Wiggling his toes, he felt his foot for the first time in hours. He whimpered in pain.

“Do you know your mom’s phone number?” the man asked.

For a terrifying second, Nathan’s mind was blank. He couldn’t remember the number or his address. Without them he would never get back home. But then the digits tumbled into his mind, and with a sudden relief he blurted them.

“Hang on, slow down.” The man finally fished out his phone. “Oh. It’s juiced out. This thing’s battery is total junk. No worries, there’s a gas station a few miles down the road. We’ll call from there.”

“O . . . okay.”

A knocking sound drew Nathan’s attention. He raised his eyes, saw someone was rapping on the driver’s window. The driver rolled it down.

“Hey, is something wrong?”

The voice coated Nathan’s heart with ice. It was him. He tried to say something, but he was completely paralyzed with fear.

“This kid was walking out here on the road in the middle of the night,” the driver told the man outside. “I think someone kidnapped him.”

“Seriously? That’s terrible.” The man peered at Nathan through the driver’s window.

“That’s him!” Nathan let out a gurgling scream. “That’s the man who took me!”

The driver turned to stare at him in surprise. And at the same moment, something flashed in the man’s hand. A blade. He jabbed it at the driver’s throat viciously, over and over and over, the driver thrashing, his fingers clawing, trying to push the knife away.

Something wet spurted on Nathan’s cheek as he gaped at the two men struggling. The blade kept jabbing. Five times, ten times. Jab. Jab. Jab. Long after the driver stopped gurgling, stopped moving. Jab. Jab.

The man breathed hard as he opened the driver’s door. He crouched, gazing past the motionless, blood-soaked driver straight at Nathan, his face a mask of fury.

“Look what you made me do,” he snarled.

All that blood.

Nathan barely understood what was going on as the man pulled the dead driver out of the car and thrust the body into the trunk. He drove the car, Nathan trembling in his seat, shutting his eyes as if it would make it all a dream. And then the man dragged him, stumbling, back into the cabin. This time, he didn’t lock him in that strange room that mimicked his own. Instead he pushed him into a small dark alcove that held a bucket and a few rags. Tossed a blanket over him.

Left him in the dark.

Nathan shivered, his body numb, feeling far away. More than anything, he wished he were warm. He faded into sleep again.

Sometimes, in his dreams, the knife cut his neck as he thrashed, panicking. And sometimes, he was the one plunging the blade into the nice driver’s throat, over and over and over, as the man tried to stop him.

“Look what you made me do.”





CHAPTER 46


Otis’s office had a large wooden table and two chairs. A shelf on the back wall was stacked to the limit by what appeared to be religious books. Abby skimmed the names, noting that despite Otis’s words about race, equality, and feminism, his literary taste showed no correlation with those topics.

The room was meticulously clean, a strong scent of lilac in the air. But underneath that smell, there was something pungent, as if the fresh lilac was intended to overcome a different odor.

Otis sat down behind the desk. Abby and Wong waited while one of Otis’s men dragged two more chairs into the office and set them near the empty chair so that they all had to sit in front of Otis. Abby sat down on the middle chair, her face giving away nothing. She didn’t care about Otis Tillman’s power plays. In fact, the more he felt in control of the situation, the better it was for her. Wong sat to her left.