Chapter Twenty-Three
Tanner watched from his definite disadvantage point as Jeter put the call on mute. He could see Bree’s face, taut with worry, as she got up and made her way toward the door.
“Do you have something to say, Deputy?” Jeter pulled the gag out of Tanner’s mouth.
“You’re not going to get away with this.”
Tanner wanted to say more. Wanted to say that Jeter was underestimating Bree once again. Wanted to say that she was smarter than he gave her credit for, and should learn his lesson since she’d bested him twice already.
But Tanner knew better than to interrupt his enemy when he was making a mistake.
“Actually, I think I am going to get away with it. Don’t you see? Bethany is coming back to me. It didn’t take much.”
“She’s coming back to you because she has a kind heart and didn’t want to see me die.”
Jeter sighed. “She always did tend to lean toward being too soft. I tried to correct that in her. Would have succeeded if she hadn’t run away. But don’t worry, I’ll succeed now. I’m the one she was always meant to be with.”
Jeter took out the ring box and began tossing it in the air again. “Honestly, Tanner. What could you give her? I am the one who always challenged her. I’m the one who helped her find the strength within herself.”
“You tortured her and her mother, isolated her and made her life a living hell. Bree Daniels is a woman of exceptional strength and beauty despite you, not because of you.”
Jeter’s eyes narrowed. “Her name is Bethany. She may have forgotten it, but don’t worry, by the time I’m finished with her she will never forget who she is or who she belongs to ever again.”
Tanner looked at the phone showing Bree leaving the police station. Had she figured out his clues? Tanner had to believe she had. Because there was no way in hell Jeter was going to let Tanner go free.
Jeter stuffed the gag back in Tanner’s mouth.
“I don’t think anybody’s going to be around to hear you if you yell, but just in case.
It’s time for me to go meet our girl. Ironically, I’m meeting her at a place just a couple blocks from here.
Someday I’ll tell her how close she was to where you died. We’ll have a good laugh about it.”
Jeter rested his arms on the side of the casket and winked at Tanner. “See, I think there’s something you don’t really understand about Bethany. She can be molded. It might take a little more pressure than when she was a teenager, but I have no doubt I can do it.”
Tanner fought down panic as Jeter began to close the lid. “And just in case I underestimated Bethany once more—because honestly, fool me three times then I’m just a damned idiot—know that I’ve made certain that if she doesn’t choose me, she’ll never choose anyone else ever again.”
The lid of the coffin closed, and blackness surrounded him.
“Sorry it had to be this way, Tanner.” Jeter’s voice was distant through the thick wood of the casket. “But Bethany and I are meant to be together. It was always supposed to be this way.”
Some sort of lock clicked on the outside and Tanner was trapped by the darkness and his own helplessness.
JETER ALLOWED brEE to pull up the GPS on Penelope’s car, but made her turn the phone so that he could see exactly what she was doing.
Smart. Because given two minutes, Bree could probably get a message sent to someone through the GPS.
Of course, Jeter could do the same thing, which was why he’d circumvented that option.
Bree was a little surprised when the address he’d given her brought her to a popular lunchtime sandwich shop. She would not have thought that Jeter would show his face in public, given how well-known he now was.
“Park the car and take the white Honda Civic.” A picture of a license plate filled her screen.
Bree did as she was directed. It was actually a smart move on Jeter’s part. If Penelope tracked the GPS in her car, it would just show that Bree was at a restaurant like she’d said she would be.
Maybe Jeter really was bringing her to where he held Tanner and planned to let him go unharmed once Bree showed up.
But she knew better. The best she could hope for right now was that Tanner wasn’t already dead. That Penelope and Whitaker figured out the clue and got to him in time.
“Okay, I’m in the new car. Where do you want me to go?”
An address popped up on the GPS of the car and Bree began following the directions. At least this time it was leading her closer to where Tanner had indicated he was being held.
“You’re never going to be able to live a normal life, Michael. Too many people know you. There will be a reward out for your capture.”
Jeter’s face filled the screen once more. “Sadly, this face will have to go. You’re right, it’s much too noticeable. Yours will have to go too, Bethany, darling.”
Bree drove the rest of the way in silence, gripping the steering wheel so hard her knuckles were white.
Was she really driving toward this madman who had made her life a living hell for so many years? And all for the possible but unlikely chance that Tanner was still alive?
She tried not to think about what Tanner would want her to do because she already knew.
Tanner would never want her to put herself back into Jeter’s clutches. Not just because of the price she would pay personally, but because of what Jeter would accomplish once he eventually wore Bree’s resistance down and she cracked.
Bree and Jeter working together unchecked would become an unstoppable force. Law enforcement would never be able to capture him again.
Tanner would definitely not want Bree to be giving herself to Jeter, even to save his life. If he could communicate with her right now he would tell her to turn the car around and drive the other way.
The only reason she didn’t was because she knew the other side of that truth too.
If the roles were reversed and Tanner could put himself in jeopardy for the chance that it might save her life, he would do it in a heartbeat.
That’s what love was.
So she kept driving in the direction Jeter indicated.
A few minutes later she pulled up outside what looked like an old strip mall with adjoining shops. It might have been a thriving part of this neighborhood at one time, but had long been abandoned.
“Just come in through the pawnshop door,” Jeter said in her ear.
Bree got out of the car and marched slowly toward the entrance. Each step got harder and harder, like a prisoner walking to execution.
It wasn’t much of a metaphor if it was happening in reality.
She opened the door and walked inside. The interior of the building had been completely gutted. All the windows were blacked out, leaving the inside barren and completely dark.
Bree waited a few seconds for her eyes to adjust, then walked a little farther inside the building.
“That’s right,” Jeter said. “Just keep walking straight. You’ll find my little office.”
Bree used the light from the screen to guide her toward the only thing she could see inside the building besides boxes—a small room in the back corner.
It wasn’t completely unlike the rooms that had been used to hold the kidnapped women.
“Let’s go, Bethany. We don’t have all day.”
Bree gritted her teeth and reached for the doorknob, then pushed the door open. There stood the man she’d been running and hiding from half her life, smiling with his arms outstretched like they were old friends.
“I’m here.” She shut the door behind her, but stayed close to it. “Now where’s Tanner?”
Jeter gestured at one of the multiple monitors sitting around the room. There were at least half a dozen different computer systems, although Bree wasn’t the least bit surprised. Jeter would always be surrounded by computers.
“Deputy Dempsey is right where I left him.”
“We had a deal. I came here, and you let Tanner go.”
Jeter just smiled. “It’s so good to see you, Bethany. The last time we met, when you betrayed me, the circumstances weren’t optimal. I’ve had a lot of time to think about you the last few months. About you and I and how we fit together.”
He took a step closer as he continued. “About how we can’t allow things to stand in our way even when methods might sometimes seem cruel. About ends justifying the means.”
“You’re not going to let Tanner go, are you? You never planned to let him go.”
“Come over here and look at your Tanner.”
Bree didn’t want to move away from the door, but had no choice when Jeter picked up the gun on the table and pointed it at her.
“Come look.” He gestured with the gun.
She wasn’t going to move. She knew firsthand there was a lot worse he could do to her than to kill her quickly with a bullet.
If Tanner was going to die anyway, then Bree wasn’t going to subject herself to a life of horror with Jeter.
Wasn’t even going to subject herself to one single touch from him.
And then she saw just the slightest bit of movement on the monitor with Tanner. Something was happening over there, around the closed casket. Maybe Penelope had figured it out.
She had to keep Jeter distracted. Gritting her teeth, she took a step away from the door.
“There’s a good girl.”
“You know I’ll hate you forever. For killing Tanner? I’ll never forgive you.”
Bree forced herself to hold completely still as Jeter closed the distance between them and reached over to touch a strand of her hair. “We both know I can break you,” he whispered. “You’ll be whatever I mold you into.”
She glanced at the monitor again while Jeter was obsessed with touching the side of her face. There was definitely something happening.
“But I’m not a complete monster. I’ve attached a canister of carbon monoxide to Tanner’s casket. All I have to do is flip the switch and he’ll die without any pain within seconds.”
He stepped back from her a little and she knew he would be turning to the monitor.
She couldn’t allow that to happen. With a scream she pounced toward the table, sweeping her arms across it and dumping everything, including the monitor with the picture of Tanner’s casket, onto the floor.
Screeching, she dived for more of the computer equipment, ready to drag it off the table also.
She kicked everything her feet came in contact with for good measure.
An arm wrapped around her waist and slung her back into the far corner of the room.
Bree was breathing hard, blood boiling. She’d never thrown a fit like this in her life and it actually felt a little good. But God, she hoped it was enough. For Penelope and Whitaker to get to Tanner and get him out.
But even if they did, they weren’t going to be able to help her. They had no way of knowing where she was.
The best thing Bree could hope for might be to get Jeter to kill her here.
Jeter shook his head and made a tsking noise. “I’m so disappointed in you, Bethany. Now your would’ve-been fiancé will die much more slowly and painfully, all so you could have a little temper tantrum.”
“What?”
Jeter took a ring box off the table and began tossing it in the air.
“This. Your boyfriend has been carrying it around. Seems like our Tanner was planning on proposing.”
He tossed the ring box to her and she caught it out of automatic reaction more than anything else. She opened it and tried to bite back her sob.
“Oops,” he said. “I guess I spoiled the surprise. But since Tanner will be dead in a few minutes anyway, there’s no real harm done.”
Bree ignored him, reaching out to run her fingers over the ring. This had been Tanner’s mom’s engagement ring. Bree remembered it from when the older woman had shown her over dinner one night.
Had Tanner really been planning to ask her to marry him when she’d been afraid he was going to ask her to move out of the ranch house?
Jeter reached over and snatched the ring out of her hand. Bree bit back another cry.
“Please. You’ve taken Tanner. Just let me keep this.”
Jeter tilted his head and studied her. “You really did have feelings for him, didn’t you?”
Bree was surprised when he lifted her hand and placed the ring box back on her palm. “I will let you keep this. Because someday you will readily give it back to me. The way you just ran your fingers so lovingly over it will be how you rub them over the ring I give you instead.”
Bree forced herself not to cringe. The important thing was that she had the ring.
Jeter crossed back over to the second table Bree hadn’t knocked over. He picked up a syringe lying there and turned back to her.
“I got this from one of the kidnappers in your case. The same one I helped you catch. You didn’t really think she was going to fall for that shell program did you?”
“Actually, no. I was pretty surprised when we got her message.”
Jeter held up his arms. “That’s because it was me. That lady in the bathtub thing would’ve definitely been dead by the time he found her, if I hadn’t killed the kidnapper and sent a message to you. See, I’m not such a terrible guy.”
Bree looked around the room. There’s no way she was going to make it to the door without him catching her and injecting her with whatever was in his hand.
There were no windows and no other way out.
There was nothing nearby for her to throw at him, and if they had hand-to-hand combat, there wasn’t much chance of Bree winning.
She backed farther into the corner, trying to figure out what she could do, and felt her shoulder get snagged on something.
The fuse box.
It wasn’t a great option but it was at least something. No windows meant no power would bring total darkness.
She glanced at the room trying to memorize where everything was. She would have to dive behind the table, crawl and reach for his gun. Of course, he’d probably be doing the same.
Jeter was still talking. The man had always loved the sound of his own voice.
“Surely you know we were always meant to be together, Bethany. Tanner said you would run. That you would never come to me, not even to trade yourself for his life. But I knew the truth. You and I, no matter what shape or form these faces end up in, belong together.”
Jeter was staring at the syringe, lost in his own words. She knew she wouldn’t have a better chance. She snatched open the fuse box, and immediately saw the master fuse. It looked like there was some sort of set of wires hanging off it, but Bree didn’t care even if it shocked her.
“No!” Jeter screamed.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw him dive for her. She grabbed the master switch and yanked it over.
Everything went black. She dived for the back of the room like she’d planned.
Then screamed as everything began to explode around her.