Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
He couldn’t drive the vehicle fast enough.
A security guard at the hospital had found the Range Rover’s keys and given them to Preston, and he was hauling ass.
Noble rode shotgun with him. Noble had also alerted Atlas Bennett and Lily.
Atlas had been pissed as hell even before he’d been given the news about Sloane because, apparently, some jerk had slashed the tires of his friend Desmond’s ride.
Desmond—the guard that Atlas had brought in to keep covert watch on Sloane.
Sloane should have been protected. She should have been safe.
I failed her. He’d let Sloane down. She’d been taken, but he was getting her back. There was no other option. He would get Sloane back. She would be alive. She would be safe.
“Yeah, okay, buddy…” Noble gripped the dashboard. “Just because a vehicle can go this fast doesn’t mean that it should—”
Preston growled.
“Fine. Go fast. But how about—don’t kill us? Don’t kill anyone else? No innocent bystanders?”
“Turn right at the next road.” Josie’s voice drifted through the car’s speaker.
“That means you have to slow down,” Noble informed him. “Otherwise, you take that turn at this speed, and we will be leaving Sloane on her own. You don’t want that, do you?”
“I’m feeding the same driving instructions to the Feds,” Josie informed them. “Got a link with Dominic even as we speak. Someone will be saving Sloane. Atlas and Lily are closing in, too. They are getting the directions, as well. My friend is not dying today.”
No, Sloane was not.
Preston slowed, just so he could take the right.
“If we go in with tires screeching and the engine snarling, he might kill her right away.” Noble maintained his grip on the dashboard. “Maybe we should try to sneak up on him. Not like we want him slitting her throat or shooting her or—”
“You are not helping,” Preston gritted from between clenched teeth. “No one is shooting her. No one is slitting her throat. Sloane is going to be fine.”
“Right. Check. Fine. Better than fine.” Noble exhaled. “Mind if I ask you a personal question?”
Did this look like the time to ask him a personal question? Preston took the right.
The vehicle lurched.
“Motherfu—keep us alive!” Noble bellowed
He was. He had to stay alive so he could kill the bastard who’d taken Sloane.
“Go straight,” Josie told him. She was tracking him based on his phone’s location. “You’re five miles away from the ambulance. It’s stationary. You have this. You’re going to get her.”
“Yes.” That was all. Yes. He’d find her. He was going to get her. He would have Sloane again.
“I’m going to assume that ‘yes’ was in response to me,” Noble rushed to say. “Can’t help but notice you barely seem to be keeping your control in place. Not something that typically happens with you. Are you on the edge because—”
“He took Sloane. He won’t hurt her.”
“—because you finally let yourself care about someone?”
Preston nearly ripped the steering wheel right out of the vehicle.
“I’ve been watching you with her. You…if you try, if you let down that guard of yours, you might actually be happy. Happy. And not just be the broody bastard that you normally are.”
The Range Rover hit a puddle of water. The splash went wide.
He didn’t respond to Noble. What was he supposed to say? Yes, I care about her. Yes, I think I could be happy with her.
Yes…I think that I might…love her.
Only there was no might about it, was there? His heart was about to break out of his chest. Every breath hurt. And he could not remember ever being this afraid in his entire life. Not even when he’d faced off with the Last Breath Killer.
He was afraid, he was terrified that he would get there too late. That’d he’d find Sloane, but she would be still and pale. Unmoving in a coffin.
Gone from his life. Gone far too soon.
He didn’t want to go back to being in a world without her in it.
The miles vanished. Time slipped past.
Then he saw the ambulance. He braked the Range Rover. Preston bounded out of the vehicle, grabbing for the gun that had been tucked under the driver’s seat. Frankie always kept a gun under the front seat.
Noble had his own weapon.
They ran for the ambulance. Jerked open the back doors. “Sloane!”
But no one was inside the ambulance and…
“Want to tell me why a deputy’s patrol car is here?” Noble asked, voice soft. “Because I thought we were in the lead on the way here. The Feds are coming, but any deputies are supposed to be behind them. That means all deputies should be behind us.”
Yes, they were in the lead. They should have been the first to arrive on scene. The patrol car sat empty, nestled underneath a tree. When he peered inside the vehicle, Preston saw the standard issue radio that the deputies in the area normally kept strapped to their belts.
There was no sign of a deputy, though.
“You think a deputy beat us?” Noble wanted to know. “You think he’s out there searching for her?”
Preston backed away from the patrol car. He stared down at the ground near the ambulance. He saw the tracks in the mud.
Boot tracks. Big. Far bigger than Sloane’s little feet. He didn’t see her footprints at all. But two pairs of boot tracks sunk into the muddy earth and headed toward the trees on the right.
He headed for those trees, too.
“Do you know what a pain in the ass it was to dig in this mud?” Adam shook his head.
He motioned to the hole. The grave that waited.
“Sloshing and slippery as a mother. But we got it done. Had it waiting even before I found you at the hospital.” He pointed to a silent Eugene.
“You settled the coffin in like I asked?”
“It’s in.”
Mud covered her body. Her jeans. Her shirt. Her arms. Eugene had zip tied her hands together. And her ankles. They’d carried her through the woods to this spot, and now the grave waited.
“Sorry about the zip ties.” Adam did not sound the least bit sorry. “Figured they’d help ensure that you didn’t do anything crazy like, oh, dig yourself out again.”
Her gaze shot to Eugene. A deputy. “Don’t do this.”
He stared back at her. No emotion showed on his face.
“You’re supposed to protect people. That’s why you are wearing that badge. Please, help me.” Her zip-tied hands moved to the right side of her body. Her fingers sank into the mud. Nice and deep.
“I didn’t help Bridget. I put the dirt over her.”
No.
“I did pull the sheriff out of that body drawer, but that was just because other deputies were coming. They’d already planned to search in the lab area. I knew I had to get her out. Had to look like I was helping. If Adam hadn’t been busy, we would have transported her. Buried her.”
“I didn’t tell you to knock out the sheriff and put her a freaking drawer!” A snarl from Adam. “You should never do shit like that without talking to me! I give the orders. I make the plans. Me, not you.”
Right. That tracked. Serial killing teams were exceedingly rare—thankfully. But when you did have a team, one tended to be the dominant. One more submissive. A rule follower.
Now she knew which one followed rules. “How did you two meet?”
Silence.
“People who love books can meet in bookstores.” Sloane kept her fingers lodged in the mud. “People who love painting can meet at an art studio. People who, ah, share an interest in—”
“We met in a chat room. He happened to like my pictures.” Adam smirked at her.
The sun was up but covered by thick clouds.
“I usually take pictures when my victims are still out cold. When they’re spread in the coffins, alive but in a pose for the dead.
I snap my pics then. And Eugene here—he liked them. ”
A shiver slid over her.
“Didn’t get to do that with you and Preston. Mostly because you weren’t supposed to be there that day.”
She hadn’t been out cold when he’d put her in the coffin.
Adam leaned in toward her. A shovel waited behind him, propped up against a tree. A shovel that had been used to dig her grave. “The dark web is full of people like me and people like him. People who have urges that they don’t understand. I helped Eugene to understand himself a bit better.”
You helped turn him into a monster.
“Want to know a secret?” Adam asked.
She wanted to keep him talking. She wanted to stay out of the grave. “Sure.”
“I’ve known for years where my brother lived.
Years. Well, he has lots of houses, doesn’t he?
Seven, at last count. But I’ve known this place was special.
It’s been his home ever since he killed our father.
So when Eugene and I connected a year ago, I convinced him to move here.
To help me keep a closer eye on Preston.
To help me…because I knew the perfect time to attack would come. ”
Her gaze slid over Adam’s EMT uniform. “You got a job helping people because no one suspects the heroes, do they? They turn to you. They go to you willingly.” Just as she had in the hospital.
“Nope, they don’t suspect me. Not when I’m in the uniform.” Laughter. “Told Eugene to do the same thing. Told him to become a deputy. He’d have access to info about everyone in this town that way. It would open all kinds of doors for us.”
Eugene was young, impressionable, and far too eager for violence. He would have been the perfect tool for someone like Adam.
“I know about your research. Trying to see what turns us into monsters, aren’t you?” Adam smirked at her. “Trying to see why I’m just like my dad?”
She didn’t lower her eyes. “I know why.”
“Why?” Spittle flew from his mouth.
“When your father went to take Preston, you said he locked you in the closet. You didn’t like that. It was too much like a grave, wasn’t it?”
He didn’t respond.
So she pushed, “I bet he kept you in that closet pretty often, didn’t he? He kept you trapped.”
“No.”
“Do you remember how you felt the first time that you watched him kill someone? You told me that you were, what, seven?”
Again, no response.