Don't Close Your Eyes (Don't Look Series Book 2), page 19
“Duck!” Audrey yells, yanking me down behind a car parked across the street from our house. We rise on our knees just far enough to see Deputy Kelley come sprinting out the front door, looking wildly back and forth. It’s too dark to make out her expression, but frantic energy crackles along her frame.
No cops, I mouth to remind myself why we’re doing this.
Audrey and I wait until the deputy stalks around the back of the house, flashlight moving in wide swaths over the marshy ground. It’s either too wet to see our boot prints in the grass, or the storm has already washed them away.
My sis and I bolt along the sidewalk, moving as quickly as we can with clothing weighed down by buckets of rain. Water flows through the gutters like angry rivers seeking the ocean and not finding it. It’s not long before my entire body is quivering with cold, but we can’t stop.
We have to make it to the meeting place as soon as possible, or the Gemini Killer will hurt Viv even more than he already has. In my ribcage, my lungs clench, making my breath short.
A truck careens round the corner, the driver losing control in the rising water, tossing it at Audrey and me in a wet wall. We whirl away, but not fast enough. The tidal wave hits our backs in a smack that makes me shriek. Cursing into the wailing storm, I shake an angry fist after the truck. What idiot takes a corner that fast in a storm that feels like a tornado?
“Come on,” Audrey yells in my face. “We have to keep going.”
When we finally get to town, it’s deserted. The power is out here, too, leaving storefronts like the ghosts of capitalism in the smothering dark. Booming thunder sets my teeth chattering. Lightning illumines our way across the street. I hesitate on the curb, watching the muddy water flow. It’s moving, deep and fast. Isn’t it a bad idea to try to walk through it? But we’re so close to the meeting spot. We can’t stop. Viv needs us.
Audrey grabs my hand and holds on tight. “You okay?”
“No, but does it matter?” My throat cracks from yelling so loud to be heard.
She shakes her head. “We can do this. Together. You make the magic, remember?”
“Let’s hope so.” Tightening my fingers around my sister’s, I plunge into the street. And almost get swept away. My leg muscles strain in my boots as we cross through the flood waters. In the middle, a trash can swipes past, almost taking us with it. Only Audrey’s additional weight keeps me on my feet.
I try not to think about Esau fighting the destroyed levee at the farm. A pinch in my chest at the idea of him combating swirling water from a ruptured irrigation ditch makes me clutch at the front of my sopping raincoat. I can’t dwell on that now. My mind skips to Noah and his family hunkered down in their home near the dairy. Justin and Karen and their rendezvous with Nate and the Gemini Killer. We haven’t heard a word from them in hours. Are they okay? Did they capture the bad guy in our story? Or are they injured? Being rushed to the hospital.
Shut up, Taryn. Now is NOT the time.
Pushing across the treacherous street, I grip Audrey’s hand. We wade through the rising deluge and climb the curb in front of the newspaper office. Our destination. The glass door rattles when I pull on the wide handle, yanking with all my strength. Locked tight.
Audrey pulls on the elbow of my jacket and points around the building. I follow to the alley. Water streams down the cement block wall on one side. On the other, an icy waterfall rushes over the roof’s edge. With a squeal, we duck underneath the frigid curtain and plaster ourselves to the building. Inch closer to the office’s back entrance. Audrey tests the knob, and it turns. Her eyes push up to mine. “You ready?” She mouths.
I nod quickly, my need to be somewhere warm overpowering the modicum of common sense that’s screaming in the back of my mind. Who cares that whoever snatched Viv said no cops? This is a colossally bad idea. We’re alone in the middle of town with someone who definitely means us harm, with no way to contact our guardians or anyone else. Suddenly it hits that this is by far the stupidest thing we have ever done, and that’s saying something.
I reach for my twin, shaking my head. We can’t do this. It’s a much better idea to get somewhere safe and wait until we can call Karen and Justin. Whoever the kidnapper is, they won’t hurt Viv. She’s their leverage. My stomach twists at the simplistic terms I’m using to describe one of my best friends. Leverage. A pawn in a bigger, deadlier game.
No. She’s not a pawn. She’s a vibrant, beautiful girl obsessed with her girlfriend, vintage clothing, and fried foods. I won’t reduce her to a mere object. She’s important. Vital. And I won’t let them hurt her anymore. “Let’s go,” I mouth to Audrey, pointing toward the unlocked door.
She waits until thunder rumbles to open it, probably hoping the noise will cover our squelching steps. Inside, water ripples around our feet. Hands tangled together, my sister and I wait until our eyes adjust to the dark. Shapes form in my vision. We’re at the end of a narrow hallway. Doors open into dark portals on both sides. The other end widens into an open space, and farther, the windows and glass door we found locked a few precious minutes ago. My chest jutters as it rises and falls. The kidnapper, and Viv, could be anywhere.
As if we’re sharing a brain, we both take a step. Past one empty, black-holed room. Another.
A big hand lands on the small of my back, shoving me forward. The thin, commercial carpet does nothing to pad my knees as they slosh against the floor. Audrey’s eyes are wide where she’s hunched beside me on all fours. Twisting to look over my shoulder, my eyes land on our assailant.
My jaw drops. Eyes grow in shock.
An overpowering shadow looms out of the room we just passed.
“Nate?” Audrey’s stammered question makes my heart drop with a plunk to the floor.
“What are you doing here?” I yell, crouching. “You’re supposed to be with the FBI.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know. Get up.” The gun in his hand is impossible to argue with, so I rise. Slowly. Painstakingly. Giving myself time to formulate some type of plan that doesn’t end up with my twin and I being held at gunpoint—again—by a guy with feral eyes and an angry slash for a mouth. One who has already tried to kill us multiple times. Not good. This is Not Good.
The gun’s barrel pokes into my stomach. “Turn around,” Nate growls. He forces us up the hallway into the last office on the right. A pile of zip ties are scattered over the desktop. A whimper sounds from behind the desk. My eyes find Viv immediately as Nate forces Audrey and me farther into the small room.
Our friend is tied up just like in the photo Audrey got. Darkened, dried blood has formed a crust along her temple and down her hairline. Her eyes are wet and puffy in the gloom. “Mmmph!” She tries to talk, but the gag stuffed between her lips makes words unintelligible.
I pin Nate with the harshest, hottest glare I can muster.
“Zip tie your sister’s hands,” Nate barks, eyeing Audrey and me warily.
Good. He should be nervous. Because I’m not capitulating. I’m biding my time. I catch Audrey’s eye, hoping to send her a subliminal message. When her eyebrows quirk upward in a fearful wiggle, I mouth, “Hospital.” We can do the same thing we did to this jack-hole last time he tried to shoot us, in the ICU.
“In case you’ve got any bad ideas,” Nate says, the words splicing through the undercurrent of the storm. Pivoting his arm, he levels the gun right at Viv. “Tie yourselves up. Fast. Or she dies.”
Gulping down the anger simmering inside me, I step closer to the desk and pick up a pair of zip ties. The ridges in the plastic dig into my palms as I grip them tight. This cannot be happening. “How did you get away from the agents?”
“And why can’t you just leave us alone? We didn’t do anything to you.” Audrey is furious.
Nate’s gaze scrapes over me like a razor blade over vulnerable skin. Veins and arteries pulsing underneath, a hair away from being slashed open and emptied onto the threadbare carpet. “Love.”
The single word falling from that harsh mouth makes something inside me break. Love, he said. Love could never make someone do something so ugly, so violent as this. Could it? I shudder.
“Tie her up. Now!” Nate inches the gun closer to Viv, who sobs into the gag.
“Fine! You win.” For now. I zip tie Audrey’s hands, motioning for her to sit down. I put a zip tie around her ankles and close it. Tighten it on Nate’s orders. “Now your own feet.”
Mumbling death threats, I comply.
“Wrists too.”
Looping one of the ties, I stuff my hands through. Our jailor forces Audrey to tighten it until it cuts into my skin.
There are a lot of colorful words I’d like to shout in his face, but he’s got a gun pointed at my friend, and I won’t be responsible for her death. That won’t be on me. Not if I can do anything to stop it.
Nate snarls down at us from his angry pedestal. “Now you’ll get what’s coming to you, and so will I.” He stomps out, and the newspaper office goes quiet.
As soon as he’s gone, I scuttle past Audrey to prop myself on my haunches in front of Viv. Pulling her forward by one shoulder, I work at the knot in the gag, trying not to pull her hair as I work the fabric loose. She spits out the bandana once I’m done. Her chest rising and falling as she pants for breath, running her tongue over torn lips.
“Are you okay?” I murmur, putting my tied hands on her shoulder.
She bobbles her head. “I don’t know. I don’t… Have you heard anything from your agents?” She sucks her teeth when I shake my head.
“I’m sure they’re fine, and they would want us to focus on getting out of here. So that’s what we’re going to do, okay?”
“She’s right. Let’s do this.” Audrey squirms next to me. “Just like they taught us.”
Lifting our arms as high as we can, we yank them down against our stomachs, just like that afternoon Karen and Justin tied us up and left us on the sofa until we figured out how to escape. We thought they were being ridiculous, but now? Now, I’m grinning.
We have an astonished Viv untied in a few beats, and then we creep toward the door to peer out. Nate stands between us and the glass path to the sidewalk. Water flows past, seeping into the office.
Canting my chin toward the back door, I lead down the hall, away from Nate and the gun gripped in his hand.
It’s not easy to tiptoe in rain boots without making a sound, but I manage. Holding my breath the entire time. It can’t be this easy to escape, can it?
The glass door out front rattles as wind hits it. My instincts are screaming. “Run!” I yell, lunging for the back door and swiping at the knob. Before I can get a grip on the metal, it opens. A solid body blocks our way.
My gaze lifts from the dripping raincoat to the scraggly hair under a bucket hat. Mouth set in a grim line.
“Mom!” Viv cries, throwing her arms around the woman. “Quick, we have to get out of here. I was kidnapped by this guy who said he was with you, and then he tied me up, and…”
My friend’s words dry up when she realizes her mom isn’t returning her embrace. Isn’t even looking at her. No, the woman is staring at Audrey and me with a burning in her eyes that can only be named disgust.
“Turn around,” Ms. Miller orders.
Viv blanches. “But Mom, I told you, the guy who kidnapped me is back—”
“Turn around!” There’s no more room to argue with the woman when she opens her raincoat and takes a handgun out of a holster at her waist. Shoving Viv aside, she aims it straight at me.
“Don’t make me ask again,” she says loudly over the thunder. Motioning with the barrel of the deadly weapon in her hands, she steps close enough to press it against my sternum. At this range, she won’t miss if she pulls that trigger.
Audrey gasps, putting her hands up in the air. With singular focus, her eyes zero in on the gun pressed against my chest. With no other alternative, she slowly pivots in her water-logged boots.
Nate is standing at the other end of the hallway, his eerie smile flashing in a bolt of lightning. “You made it,” he says, looking past Audrey, past Viv and me, to Ms. Miller.
“Took some doing,” Ms. Miller replies. “Turn around, girl.”
Horror dawns in six words. Nate wasn’t working with Robert Baugh. He was working with Ms. Miller. The only thought buzzing in my head like an over-large mosquito intent on drinking my blood, is why?
The flickering flame of expectation behind my ribcage winks out for a long beat before I nurse it back to life. This looks really, really bad. But there’s got to be a way out. There’s got to be.
Chapter 30
We spill out into the wider room at the front of the building, stoppered by Nate at the fore and Ms. Miller at our backs. Her eyes are cold and calculating as her attention skims over Audrey and me to land on her daughter. Viv clutches my arm, her broken nails digging into my skin through the raincoat. Sweat trickles down my spine. This is not good.
My friend shudders, taking tentative steps toward her mother. “Mom? Please, tell me what’s going on.”
Nate aims his gun at her, making her freeze, palms out, eyes wide and shining in the gloom.
I don’t wait for an answer, spinning toward Nate. “What happened at the meet-up? With the Gemini—?” I cut myself off when I realize that Robert Baugh was never at the meeting tonight. It was Ms. Miller all along. And if she’s here…
Rounding us, the woman pushes Nate’s weapon down and away from her daughter, a focused, stern look in her eyes as she stares at my friend. Everyone in this room must know Viv is collateral damage if this goes any more wrong than it already has. “Leave now, darling, and run straight home. Wait for me there.”
Viv manages to tear her gaze away from Nate’s gun to meet her mom’s hardening expression. Her voice is scratchy, the words flying from her throat like bats disturbed into fleeing from their cave. “What? Why? Mom, tell him to put the gun down. We have to get out of here.”
Ms. Miller shakes her head slowly, her jaw set. “I can’t leave yet. Not until I’ve finished this.” Her hand tightens on Nate’s wrist.
The damp, musky odor of loam after a rain fills my nostrils as outside, the storm rails against the buildings. A gust of wind makes the glass front of the newspaper office bow and writhe. Ms. Miller’s rain boots slosh as she moves closer, hovering at the edge of the room.
One hand rises to the scar along my cheek, fingertips curling against my marred skin.
Audrey stares at Nate, unable to look away, fear etching over her cheeks.
Dropping my hand, I refuse to meet Ms. Miller’s eyes. I won’t dignify her with it. She’s unhinged and doesn’t deserve my attention. The tight wire situation between her and Nate feels more urgent, anyway.
I can’t ignore the rising waters outside, either. Rain dumps in black, swirling tides that creep upward in a bid to devour the buildings of downtown Hacienda.
Audrey pushes her frizzy, wet hair behind her ears, dragging her eyes away from the boy who used to be a friend. Blinking, she focuses on Viv’s mom. Holds out her hands in placation. “Can you, can you tell us what happened to the FBI agents who were in the park? Are they okay?”
The woman’s frown deepens as she tears her eyes off the scar bisecting my skin. Her focus skims past us to Nate, head tilting as she considers. Lightning flashes through the window, limning her figure in silver and white. Her eyes snap to Audrey’s. “They’re dead. Probably washed away by the floodwaters by now. When we left, the park looked more like a lake.”
The harsh edges in her voice sever something inside me. A tether that was keeping me in check, on this side of right and wrong. But in this instant, hearing that Karen and Justin are gone—that they’ve been taken from us by violent hands—any control I had is wrenched away. With a loud bellow that surprises even me, I snatch a heavy duty stapler off the nearest desk and spin, hurling it at Nate. He restarted this—the blood and pain and heartbreak—and somehow got Viv’s mom roped into the madness. I’m going to finish it.
Audrey screams as the stapler whooshes past his head and hits the wood-paneled wall with a crack. It drops to the ground, but I don’t see it. I’m already throwing myself toward the desk. Running my hands over the surface. Groping wildly for something else to throw. Pens. Sheets of paper. Notepads. Where is one of those completely useless, hefty paperweights when I need it? Bellowing in anger, I whirl to face him. The guttural, furious cry scrapes at my throat as it comes, leaving it bruised and raw.
Nate appears unbothered by my outburst. And why would he be? He and his accomplice have weapons. All I have is a ceramic mug full of dull pencils and pens. Raising his voice to be heard over another boom of thunder, Nate says, “Let’s finish this, like we planned. I’ll kill them quick. Then we’ve gotta get out of here before the water cuts us off.”
My mind is spinning off its anchor. A singular thought strikes in the dark, slicing through the stench of fear and fury. Sheriff Lamb didn’t know what to make of the note with the letters. D, Y, T, L. He speculated that they were the initials of the girls who died in the 80s. The case Noah has been researching. What if those deaths are somehow connected to our attacks? Nate isn’t old enough to know anything first-hand about them, but Ms. Miller is closer to the right age. A sinking in my gut forces me to scrutinize the woman still standing a few feet away, studying me like a bug under a microscope. Unfazed by my violence. She has the gun.
There weren’t any similarities or individuals in common between the 80s case and ours, but maybe Ms. Miller was there. Maybe she knows why the psychic killed those girls. Knows what happened when Lydia Freeman disappeared.
“D, Y, T, L. Did you put Nate up to writing that note? Were you there? Were they your friends?”
Ms. Miller’s lips curl. “No questions. You won’t understand.”
Her vehemence is the answer. “You were there. They were your friends. Did you see them die? Do you know where Lydia is?”
The woman blanches. Fingers tightening on the gun’s handle, she glares at me. “Shut. Up.”
