Chapter 17
Avery swam to the surface of darkness, her thoughts fuzzy, her vision blurred. She lay on her side with her cheek pressed against a cold, hard concrete floor.
A dull yellow light shone down from above, swaying slightly.
“Oh, dear Sarah, welcome to the finale,” a deep male voice said from somewhere close by. Had she heard it before?
Still groggy and lethargic, Avery glanced in that direction, willing her vision to clear, for her thoughts to crystallize.
“I searched for years,” the man was saying.
“After your disappearance ruined my career, I vowed to find you and the brats you chose over me. What did I tell you before you left?” He paused as if waiting for a response.
“That’s right,” he said, though no one spoke.
“I’d make you watch them die before I killed you. ”
Alarm shot through Avery. This man planned to kill again. From her current state of bondage, she suspected she would be next.
As her mind further cleared, her thoughts shifted to Bree. She’d been with her before everything had gone black.
“Would you like to choose which of your daughters will go first?” the man asked.
Avery had heard that voice. With her head still swimming, she couldn’t quite place it.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll choose for you.”
A soft moan sounded as if from a distance.
Avery tried to move around to see what was going on but didn’t want to draw attention to herself. Not until she had a chance to weigh her options, come up with a plan and get the hell out of wherever she was.
Another moan sounded. Closer. Behind her. Something moved, touched her back.
“Avery,” a soft voice sounded nearby.
Bree. She was alive.
Relief flooded Avery, followed by a sense of doom. They were alive now. The monster who’d been killing other women now had them for his next conquest.
Avery refused to let that happen. She’d only just found her sister.
They’d just begun getting to know each other.
This couldn’t be the end. Not now. Not until they were well into their nineties.
Even more, Avery planned to spend time with the people she loved.
Her newfound sister. Her ex-husband, she hoped, could be convinced to give her a second chance.
How she wanted to tell him she loved him, to be held in his arms and kiss him again. No. This was not the end.
So, what was she going to do about it? She was trussed up like a prized pig being prepared for the spit. If only she could break the zip ties and free Bree, they would have a fighting chance.
She looked around the dark interior of the room he’d brought her to.
Room was an overexaggeration. It was more like a derelict warehouse or abandoned factory.
She glanced up at the sky through the massive hole in the roof.
Mildew spread dark tentacles across the concrete and some of the abandoned furniture.
If she could get close to something sharp to scrape against the zip ties, she could free her hands.
Free of her bindings and whatever drug they’d injected into her, she had a fighting chance to stop the monster from following through with his reign of terror.
The rusted skeleton frame of an old metal bookshelf might just be what she needed.
Moving slowly, she inched toward the rusted metal frame, easing backward, ready to freeze should her captor discover her ploy.
Bree scooted out of her way, her gaze on the killer, moving about in the corner of the room.
“You chose to abandon Baby B first. Perhaps we need to start there.”
Avery pushed a little closer to the rusted metal frame and rubbed the hard plastic of the zip tie against the ragged, rusted edge, her gaze fixed on the man moving toward them.
No. She needed more time. She couldn’t fight someone so much larger than she was with her hands secured behind her back. If only she could break free.
The closer he came, the faster her heart beat. Would he choose her to go first in his sick, twisted plan?
Avery couldn’t see who he’d been talking with if he’d been talking to anyone at all. The man was obviously insane. He’d already killed three women and had plans to kill two more.
Not if she could help it.
As he approached, Avery tensed, rubbing even harder while she strained against the tightness of the plastic bindings.
Just as the man bent to lift Bree, the zip tie around Avery’s wrists snapped free.
Avery rolled onto her hands and knees and then launched herself at the man, driving him backward until he stumbled and slammed against the wall of the building, shaking the frame. Glass cracked and fell from old windows high above, landing around her feet, breaking into small, sharp shards.
Before she could regain her balance, the man grabbed her arms and roared in her face. “Bitch! I’ll show you who rules around here.” He slapped her hard across her cheek. “You’re as worthless as that pathetic excuse of a mother who tossed you out like so much trash and then disappeared.”
He shook Avery so hard that her teeth rattled, and her head swam. His face came into view.
Avery gasped. “Dan?”
“Damn right, it’s me. I was there all along, but you were too stupid to see.
Think you’re a hotshot federal agent? You couldn’t even see the answer right in front of your face.
No, you saw a man carrying coffee, not a man who could squeeze the life out of women who looked just like my dear wife—the woman who dared to leave me and take my children with her. ”
“You’re a monster,” Avery said.
“I’ll show you a monster. I made a promise to my Sarah. Until death do us part. She broke that promise. Now, I’m here to see it through. She chose this path for herself and for her children when she left. She knew what would happen to them. She’d watch them die.”
He dragged her across the floor and turned her to face what appeared to be a woman, tied to a chair. Only she was nothing more than skin and bones, her eyes sunken in her bruised face.
When Avery was thrown in front of her, the woman barely flinched, her eyes glassy, distant. Almost dead inside.
Though her hair hung in limp strands, gray at the temples and peppered with gray mixed with darker strands, Avery recognized her features.
High cheekbones, dark eyes, strong chin.
Though older and malnourished, with evidence of abuse written in bruises and cuts across her skin, there was no mistaking that this woman was an older version of Avery and Bree.
“Sarah,” Avery breathed.
The woman’s dull eyes focused on Avery. Tears welled and slipped down her cheeks. “My sweet baby,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
Rage built inside Avery.
This man had terrorized this woman, reducing her to a shadow of herself, and had killed three other women to make this one watch and suffer.
“You’ll be first,” Dan said. “Sarah, pay close attention. You did this by choosing to leave me. You sentenced your babies to death. Now, you will watch them die, like you watched the others die.”
“No,” Sarah whispered.
The pain in her face triggered something primal inside Avery.
Though Dan had her arms trapped against her sides, she still had control of her feet. With all the anger and determination she could muster, she stomped down hard on the top of his foot.
“God damn bitch!” he yelled, spun her around and punched her in the belly.
The force of his heavy blow made Avery double over, the pain taking her breath away.
She remained bent at the waist, her stomach roiling, the contents threatening to rise.
How could this man be her father? He was an animal—a sick bastard who took pleasure in hurting others. Her mother had done the best she could to keep him away from her babies. Had she stayed with him and raised her girls under his vicious abuse, they might have died sooner rather than now.
Dan grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. “Prepare to die.” With a powerful yank of her hair, he flung her to the ground and straddled her, holding her arms at her sides.
“Do you know what it’s like when you can’t draw a breath, when you can’t pull air into your lungs to scream? Every time you inhale, nothing enters your lungs!”
“Fuck you,” she said and spat in his face.
“Bitch,” he cried and clamped his hands around her neck. “You think you’re smarter than me? How does that feel? Smarter?” His grip tightened, cutting off her air.
Avery clawed at his arms, desperately trying to pry his fingers from her throat.
Her lungs burned with the need to fill them.
Her heart raged. She couldn’t die without a fight.
He’d turn on Bree and then on the mother she’d never known.
The mother who had abandoned her and her twin to keep her horrible husband from hurting them.
She’d sacrificed so much to keep her babies safe.
Her mother had loved them enough to know the only way to save them was to give them up.
Avery would be damned if she let them die on her watch. Even as she thought to fight, gray haze clouded her vision as she went limp, darkness reaching out to consume her.
“Let her go!” a female voice sounded a second before Dan’s body shuddered with an impact and fell forward on top of Avery.
Bree had landed on Dan’s back, wrapped her legs around him and refused to let go.
Avery sucked in as much air as she could get. Dan’s big body crushed her chest, making it hard to breathe and fill her starving lungs.
A shadow flitted behind Bree. Suddenly, a dark-clad man hooked a plastic bag over Bree’s head and yanked her backward.
Her legs loosened around Dan, and she was dragged off him, clawing at the plastic bag.
“No,” Avery gasped and shoved hard against Dan, shoving him to one side. Once she was free of his weight, she rolled away from him, lurched to her feet and dove toward the man in black, who was suffocating her sister.
She’d only made it one step when a hand clamped around her ankle and pulled her back, sending her to her knees.