Dead Right (Stillwater Trilogy #3)(86)
Author: Brenda Novak

“I just did,” he said and tossed the crowbar aside.

She followed him when he went in, but hovered at the door. “I’m going to call the police!”

“Please do,” he responded. “Tell them to pick up Ray Harper as soon as possible.”

The shrill edge left her voice. “Why? What’d he do?”

“Just tell them I said he’s the one we’ve been looking for.”

He did no more than glance at her, but he saw her eyes go wide as she popped her gum. “Who killed the reverend?”

“Who broke into Madeline’s house!” he said impatiently.

“Oh. I heard about that.”

He motioned to the phone. “Hurry!”

She came in and dialed as he searched the kitchen and living room, then headed down the hall. In the bathroom, he found a smear of blood on the vanity and bloody bandages in the trash can. In the bedroom across the hall, he found a bottle of Viagra on the nightstand. Someone had shoved a bunch of sex toys under the bed and left a photograph of Madeline as a young girl on the dresser. Like the sermons in the trash outside, Hunter suspected that picture had come from the boxes in Madeline’s basement.

Her gap-toothed smile made him feel things he really didn’t want to feel—tenderness and concern…

“They want to talk to you,” the neighbor said, standing in the doorway.

“I’ll call them from my cell phone.” He was too busy now. He needed to fire up Ray’s computer, check his files and e-mail. But the picture that confronted him as soon as he opened Ray’s “recent folder” caused the neighbor to gasp and nearly made Hunter sick.

It was a picture of Madeline’s head, which had been scanned in from the photograph he was holding, on some other woman’s body who was being raped by three men. Below the picture were the words, “Make her beg.”

Ray dropped the shovel, then dragged Madeline’s unconscious body to the end of the porch. He had to hurry in case Clay returned. If Clay was as guilty of the reverend’s murder as everyone believed, he couldn’t want Madeline poking around in the past any more than Ray did. But Clay was unpredictable and possibly dangerous, and that was all there was to it.

“They’ll search for you,” he said over the scrape of her boots against the wooden planks. “But they won’t find a trace.” He grunted as he heaved her over one shoulder. “I doubt anyone’ll look for too long. Maybe that big bad brother of yours seems protective, but let’s face it. You’re not his real sister. And, frankly, his life would be easier without you.”

Using some rope he’d brought from home, Ray bound Madeline’s hands and feet. Then he gagged her with a bandanna and tied her into the bed of his truck, so that even if she awoke, there wouldn’t be enough slack to allow her to sit up. Finally, he threw an old blanket over her.

That’s good for now. Glancing nervously around, he jumped into the driver’s seat and drove away from the farm as slowly and comfortably as if he’d just stopped by for a visit. But once he was several miles down the road, with nothing but rolling hills on either side, he pulled over and took the time to arrange a tarp on top of her, in case it rained. They had a long drive ahead of them, and it was cold. It’d be even colder in the hills of Tennessee. He didn’t want her to freeze before they could reach the cabin he’d rented.

He pulled out the money he’d stolen from Bubba and counted it again. He’d have enough to buy supplies for at least a week.

He couldn’t wait to start the fun. It would be even better than those afternoon and late-night sessions with the reverend, Katie and Rose Lee. That was before anyone had invented Viagra.

Maybe he’d invite one of the buddies with whom he traded  p**n ography on the Internet to join him. He wasn’t sure if anyone lived close, since it was such a clandestine group—for their own safety it had to be. But Madeline would be worth the drive. And when the week was up, maybe he’d rent her to someone else for a while, like the folks who made money on the cabin. She’d be an investment!

He chuckled at his own thoughts, even waved cheerfully as he passed a woman whose fence he’d mended last summer. They could take pictures, too, and sell them on the Internet. Some guys made a lot doing that. Of course, Madeline wasn’t a child, so the pictures wouldn’t go for a premium, but they could chain her up and get some good rape and torture stuff. And when they grew bored—he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as a rush of nervous excitement ran through him—maybe they could make a snuff film. That would have to bring in the big bucks, a beautiful woman killed right on camera.

With such big plans, Ray began to worry that he might’ve hit Madeline too hard with that shovel. “Come on, Maddy, come back to me,” he muttered, frequently turning to look through the back window at the tarp that covered her. “Don’t ruin it.”

After another fifteen minutes, he nearly stopped to check for a pulse. But just as he slowed down, he saw the lump beneath the tarp begin to move.

The gag cutting the corners of her mouth made it difficult to breathe. Closing her eyes, Madeline tried to calm her racing heart, tried to control the panic that edged closer with every second. Where was she? What’d happened?

She’d been at her house. No, she’d been at the farm. She’d broken a window and then…

Her memory finally cooperated, and she saw Ray holding the shovel, swinging it at her head. But why had he done that? She’d known Ray her whole life!

Slowly, her faculties returned, accompanied by more pain. She was in a—a trunk or…the hard bed of a pickup truck, under a musty-smelling blanket. Her head and jaw ached, her hands and feet burned unmercifully, and a knot dug into her hip. She shifted as much as she could, hoping to relieve that discomfort if no other, but it only made the shoulder that bore most of her weight complain more loudly.

The black void of unconsciousness edged close and rolled back, edged close and rolled back, like lapping water on the shore of a lake. Madeline’s body screamed at her to dive in, to simply drift away with the tide.

But there was something inside her that warned against succumbing…

Wake up…Move…Fight…Save yourself!

The truck swerved around a sharp turn, putting even more pressure on her shoulder. She moaned, and reached eagerly for oblivion, anything to block out the misery. But then, just before it descended, she recognized a new smell. Pine trees. Not only was she hurt, bound and gagged, she wasn’t in Stillwater anymore.