Thread of Fear, page 29
part #1 of The Glass Sisters Series
“Okay, okay…But I don’t want to get pulled over.”
“I think they’re heading west,” Jack whispered, even though the phone was muted.
“Shit, we’ll pass ’em.”
The words were just out of his mouth when a pair of headlights came into view up the highway.
“That might be them,” Jack said. “Call Santos and let him know. Maybe they can set up a roadblock.”
The headlights were coming fast. Much too fast. Jack slowed down and strained to listen.
She was saying something about Brady. About a window. She was probably talking about the bedroom window. It had been broken, but the opening wasn’t sizable enough for a person to fit through.
“Can you blame him?” she was asking. “Kids get scared easily. If it had been me, I would have been hiding under the bed.”
“She’s trying to tell us something,” Jack said. “I think Brady’s under a bed somewhere. Tell Santos. Make sure whoever goes in there knows to look for a kid. Probably hiding.”
Just then the car flashed its headlights and flew past.
Jack jerked his head around. “It’s them. Shit, I think she’s driving. She must have recognized my truck.”
He eased off the accelerator and watched the taillights in his rearview mirror. He was tempted to pull an immediate U-turn, but he didn’t want to tip the guy off. The SUV faded over a rise, and Jack slammed on the brakes. His truck fishtailed to a stop, and he turned it around.
“What’s the plan, J.B.?”
Jack killed the headlights and stomped on the pedal. “We’re going after them.”
She felt his gaze burning into her like a laser.
He’d caught the lights thing. It had been a risk to do it, and now she’d provoked him.
“You think you’re smarter than me, don’t you? You think I don’t know what you’re doing, you little bitch?”
She stared straight ahead and gripped the steering wheel. Her gamble had failed. She’d thought the truck might have been Jack, but its taillights had disappeared in the rearview mirror.
“You fuck with me, there’s consequences. That’s something you need to learn.” He jabbed a finger at the control panel, and Fiona looked down, puzzled.
The cigarette lighter. She shot him a glance and saw his lip curl into a smile. Lucy had told her about that smile, about how every time she saw it, she knew something horrible was coming.
Fiona shifted her gaze to the road and tried to breathe. She had to get away….
Click. The lighter popped out, and he reached for it. He held it up, admiring the glowing coil at the end.
Fiona swerved off the highway and jammed on the brakes. The SUV pitched down, and up, and metal scraped against metal as they careened into the barbed-wire fence. Yelps and curses exploded beside her, and her body snapped forward, then back again.
For an instant, everything was still.
Adrenaline flooded her veins, and she shoved open the door. She tumbled out, landing on all fours, and then tripped to her feet. Barks rang in her ears. She ran, heart thundering, as fast as her legs could go.
Jack screeched to a halt just behind the wreckage and jumped out of the truck, SIG in hand. Where was Fiona? The driver’s-side door stood open, but—
Pop! Pop!
“Take cover!” Carlos yelled, ducking behind the door on his side. “Where’s the shooter?”
“I don’t know!” And where was Fiona?
“Police! Drop the gun!” Carlos bellowed.
The windshield shattered.
“Get behind the engine block!” Jack shouted, and Carlos dove back into the cab and elbow-crawled over the seat. With three tons of metal between them and the gunman, they crouched on the street. Furious barks sounded nearby.
“Couldn’t see him,” Carlos said, panting. “Think he’s still in there?”
“I don’t know. Did you see Fiona?”
He shook his head. Then he jerked out his phone and placed an urgent call for backup.
Jack eased toward the front bumper and peered over the hood. Where was she? He couldn’t see worth shit.
“Duck inside the cab and flip my brights,” he told Carlos. “I’ll try and get a shot from behind the glare. Wait for my signal.”
Jack steadied his arms on the hood and waited. He had to be 100 percent sure. If he mistook the target…Sweat streamed down his temples, and he took a deep breath and nodded.
The lights flashed on, and a shadow moved inside the wreck. Jack’s trigger finger flinched, but he wasn’t certain.
Pop!
He leaped back, like he’d been singed. “Son of a bitch!” He slid down and leaned against the tire well, clutching his shoulder.
“You’re hit?”
“Bastard nicked me.” Jack squeezed his eyes shut.
“You sure it’s just a nick?”
No. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“Shit, it’s bleeding everywhere.”
“Forget it.” Damn, how had this happened? He’d thought he had the advantage. He looked at Carlos. “We need a new plan. How about—”
“Down!”
Carlos jerked him to the pavement, and rifle fire reverberated all around them. Jack swung his weapon toward the noise, but the shooter was down already, sprawled in front of the pickup.
“You got him!”
“Did you see that?” Carlos sputtered. “A fucking AK-47! He tried to Swiss cheese us!”
“I think he’s alive.” Jack trained his weapon on the gunman and approached warily. Sure enough, one of the arms moved, like he was reaching for something.
With lightning speed, Carlos had him rolled on his stomach with his hands cuffed. Blood was pouring from the man’s right leg.
Jack hurdled the guy and rushed to the SUV.
It was empty except for a pissed-off Rottweiler. Someone had leashed it to the door handle, probably to keep it from ruining the stealth attack.
“Fiona!” Jack ran in front of the wreck and glanced around frantically. The vehicle’s high beams made a surreal white landscape of weeds and rocks and fence posts, but Fiona was nowhere. Where could she be? She must have fled right after impact.
Just before bullets had started flying.
“Fiona!” Desperate, he turned around in circles. Maybe she was hiding. Maybe she’d run the other way.
And then he spotted her. A dark heap at the bottom of the ditch.
He sprinted over and dropped to his knees. She lay on her side in the leaves and muck. “Fiona? Oh, Jesus.” Her eyelids fluttered, then closed. He turned back toward Carlos. “We need an ambulance!”
Gently, he rolled her onto her back. Her hair was sticky and warm. “Fiona? Can you hear me?” He ran his hands over her face, her head, her neck, searching for the source of all the blood. It seemed to be gushing from a spot near her ear. “Honey, stay with me.”
Jack ripped off his bloodied shirt and wadded it into a ball. He pressed it against her head as a stream of incoherent words spilled out of him. He didn’t know what he was saying, only that he was pleading with her and willing her to hear him.
“Fiona, hold on.”
Her eyes opened then, and Jack’s heart lurched. She murmured something.
“What?” He leaned closer.
“I’m…scared.”
“It’s okay. Help’s coming.” Sirens wailed faintly in the distance, but they never seemed to get close.
God, her full, beautiful lips were gray. Her eyes were wide with shock.
“Stay with me, now.” He picked up her hand and pressed it flat against his chest. “Help’s coming, okay? Just hold on.”
CHAPTER 23
Shelby Sherwood was hungry.
And not the small, quiet hungry, like when you went to bed without dinner. This hungry was fierce, like an animal with teeth and claws wrestling her insides.
She took another two steps and sank down beside a broken log. She felt dizzy. She tipped her head back and stared up at the pine trees, high as skyscrapers, and wished for something to eat.
An extra-cheese pizza from Dino’s. She’d eat it straight out of the box and wouldn’t share a single piece with Colter.
Well, maybe one.
A new pain twisted her stomach, and the thing she’d been trying to forget about for days and nights and weeks popped back into her head.
I want to go home.
But she didn’t know where home was. She only knew it wasn’t here.
She looked up at the sunbeams coming down through the branches. The beams were white and thick, and made her think about God. She’d been thinking about God a lot lately and wondering if her dad was with Him up in heaven right now, looking down at her.
She’d heard her grandma talking once, saying her dad was a sinner because he drank too much and never went to church. Her mom had argued, but Shelby knew her grandma was right—at least about the drinking and the church part.
But Shelby thought maybe God was different from that. Maybe He understood about the bad things, like her dad’s drinking, and the way she sometimes lied to her mom, and the way she’d sneaked onto the computer when she wasn’t allowed. Shelby knew she’d brought all this on herself, but she hoped maybe God didn’t see it like that.
Shelby closed her eyes and let the sun warm her face. Her cheeks felt cold from the tears she couldn’t quit making, and her stomach started to twist again.
She rubbed the hair away from her face and got up. She had to find food. It had been four days since she’d eaten much of anything, and three days since the man had left, saying he’d be back with hamburgers. He’d stayed gone a long time—longer than ever before—and Shelby had thought she should try to get away from the cabin. He’d nailed the windows shut and locked the door with a key and told her don’t make trouble, or she’d be sorry.
And he’d made her sorry before, so she’d believed him. But when morning came, and he still wasn’t back, she’d decided to try anyhow.
Shelby walked on through the forest now, looking for blackberries or dewberries, like she and Colter used to pick near their grandma’s house. She didn’t want to remember the man anymore. She hated thinking of his ugly hands and his stinky breath in her face. She hated everything about him.
I want to go home.
She pushed the thought away again and kept walking. The ground was soft under her Skechers, and her feet were so numb, she almost didn’t feel the blisters anymore.
The bushes rustled, and she looked along the edges of the path. She’d seen squirrels and chipmunks and even a rabbit, but not a single other person since she’d left the cabin. She didn’t mind. Sleeping alone on the moss and leaves was better than being back there.
Shelby’s legs wobbled, but she kept going. She didn’t want to stop yet, not until she’d found something to eat. Maybe if she listened hard, she’d at least find a stream to drink out of. So she walked and listened. The trees started to thin out, and the ground wasn’t as soft. Something white and lacy up ahead made her stop.
A mayhaw tree. Her grandma had mayhaws. She gathered the berries every year for jelly and cooked them up in her big soup pot. Shelby liked to watch as she poured the red juice into jars that said Ball on the sides.
She got close to the tree. It was small, like a midget compared to the big pines. She didn’t see any berries—just flowers—but she grasped the trunk with both hands and started shaking. She shook and shook and the flowers came down like snowflakes.
“What you doing to my tree, child?”
Shelby spun around. At first she didn’t see the woman. Her skinny brown body and her baggy brown clothes blended right in with the tree trunks.
“Fruit don’t come for a while yet. You just shakin’ the flowers loose.”
Shelby stepped back as the woman came close. She squinted down at Shelby from underneath a straw hat.
“You a mess, girl.”
“I was just…” Shelby glanced at the tree. “I was looking for berries.”
The woman worked something around in her mouth. She turned and spit on the ground. She squinted some more and leaned her head to the side. “You hungry?”
Shelby nodded.
“Come on, now.”
She waited a second and then followed the woman down the windy path to a brighter place where all the trees were short. There was a cabin up on blocks with white-flowering mayhaws all around it.
“You set there on the porch.”
Shelby dropped onto the lowest wooden step and rubbed her palms on her jeans. Her hands were dirty. Her face was probably dirty. Her hair hung around her head like string, and she needed a toothbrush.
But then she heard oil spitting, and the smell of bacon made her forget all that. Her mouth started to water. She ran her tongue over the empty place where her tooth had used to be, the one he’d knocked out that first day. She didn’t like thinking about that day, but sometimes she couldn’t help it because her tongue kept touching the empty spot. Her shoulders got tight, and she glanced into the cabin. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe she should run back into the woods.
But her stomach growled again, so she stayed, and the woman came onto the porch with a blue tin plate and cup.
“Careful, now. Coffee’s hot.” She put the cup and plate next to Shelby, and sat down on the highest step.
Shelby looked at the food and wanted to cry. Two pieces of bread, smeared with butter and jelly. Three strips of bacon. She snatched one up and stuffed the whole thing in her mouth. After a few chews, she picked up the bread.
The woman watched her from under the hat. “That’s the best mayhaw jelly in Sabine Parish. I sell more jars than Miss Mayhaw and Southern Best combined.”
Shelby chewed the bread, feeling bad for hardly even tasting it.
The woman looked out at her yard. “People be saying these is miracle trees. Not supposed to bloom another three weeks yet. And after all that cold, we thought they might not bloom at all. Now here it is February, we got flowers everyplace.”
The woman looked at her a long time, and Shelby tried to slow down, but her mouth seemed to be moving on its own.
“Where your people, girl? You out here alone?”
Shelby looked down. She swallowed. She didn’t know what to say, so she picked up another piece of bacon.
The woman turned to her yard again.
“Miracle trees. Humph!” She made an arc of spit into the dirt. “We make our own miracles round here. Been through droughts and mealybugs, Katrina and Rita. Only thing kept my business going was a generator and a deep freezer and a strong back to haul it all up outta the flood.”
Shelby didn’t like coffee, but her mouth felt dry, so she drank some. It was warm, and the bitterness made her shudder.
“You that Georgia girl.”
Shelby froze.
“People be looking for you. Just yesterday, some FBI man was asking ’bout you down at the gas station. Someone seen the car you was in over at the campground. Whole town’s talking ’bout it.”
She couldn’t breathe. The food made a big, greasy ball in her stomach, and she thought she’d throw up. She glanced at the woods.
The woman reached out and placed a brown hand over hers. “Don’t be scared now.” Her voice was soft. “Ain’t no one gonna hurt you here.”
With her other hand, she pulled a cell phone out of her pocket. It was big and gray like a remote control.
“You got someone to call, baby? I can do it for you if you want.”
She turned Shelby’s palm up and pressed the phone into it. Shelby stared down, and her thumb seemed to remember the numbers. She lifted it to her ear.
The loud beeps made her jump.
“Dial one first, child. You in the piney woods of Louisiana.”
Shelby tried again and waited through the rings. Then came her mother’s voice, and she felt dizzy again.
“Mom, it’s me.” And the tears burst out. “I want to come home.”
Fiona felt heavy, everywhere. She tried to move her arm, and then her leg, but every limb seemed cemented to the ground.
She wasn’t on the ground. She was on something firm, but soft, and her head was slightly higher than the rest. She smelled Band-Aids. She opened her eyes and winced at the glaring light. Suddenly her skull seemed to squeeze, and she moaned.
Her arm lifted, and something warm enveloped her hand. It felt familiar. She remembered that warmth around her hand sometime before. When? It had been just after the bright lights and the pinpricks and the man with the blue mask.
“You awake?”
She opened her eyes again. This time Jack’s big, dark form blocked the glare from the lamp beside her bed.
But it wasn’t her bed. She darted her gaze around and panicked. She tried to sit up. The bolt of pain was so intense it sucked the breath out of her.
“Lay back.”
“Where…?” She didn’t have enough air to finish the thought. Her throat felt dry.
“You’re in the hospital.” His voice was close. “They got you all taken care of now. You’re going to be fine.”
He squeezed her hand, and the heat of his fingers made her realize how cold the rest of her was.
“I’m cold.”
He dropped her hand for a moment, and she panicked again. But then a thick blanket came up around her shoulders.
“Better?”
She tried to nod, which was a huge mistake. Someone seemed to be whacking her forehead with a mallet. She groaned and closed her eyes.
The commotion increased inside the room. She heard Jack’s voice, and a woman, and then there was another man talking, and she slid back into darkness.
She opened her eyes again, and the room was brighter. Strangely, though, it wasn’t nearly as painful as before. She let her gaze trail around slowly, taking in the pale blue walls, the brown curtains pulled closed, the table littered with coffee cups. On a beige recliner sat a giant red purse.
“Well, well! Look who’s up!” Courtney appeared in her field of vision. She had a smile plastered on her face and black smudges under her eyes.
