John Saul - Black Lightning

If only he could talk to her; tell her what he was going to do to her daughter, make her suffer even more from the foreknowledge of what Heather would feel.

If only he could watch Anne’s face as he carefully cut Heather’s chest open to expose her heart.

If only he could hear Anne scream as he held her daughter’s throbbing heart in his hand, and listen to her pleas as he slowly squeezed that heart to a stop.

If only he could witness her pain and helplessness as he went about his work, just as she’d savored his as she hounded him until finally they’d locked him in a cell and made him sit alone until they’d electrocuted him. He hadn’t let her see how much he’d suffered, of course. He’d hidden his terror of the cell, even hidden his terror of the electric chair. But although he’d kept his fears hidden, he knew she’d sensed them, knew she’d pleasured in them.

Tonight, though, she would take her punishment. Tonight, and for the rest of her life.

Lightning blazed across the sky, instantly followed by a thunderclap that shook the motor home, and Richard Kraven felt a thrill of pleasure as a tiny cry escaped Heather Jeffers’s lips.

“Please,” he heard her beg. “Please can’t we stop? We’re going to get killed!”

A sign loomed ahead, its face glowing green in the glare of the headlights, and though the water sluicing over the windshield prevented him from reading the letters, he knew what the sign said.

The exit for Snoqualmie Falls was only a little way ahead. Moving his foot off the accelerator, Richard Kraven gently touched the brake, and the motor home slowed.

Heather, her hands clamped tight to the armrests of the passenger seat, tried to catch a glimpse of the sign as they passed under it, but the flash of lightning had momentarily blinded her, and her pupils had not yet readjusted to the darkness of the night.

He hadn’t spoken to her for a long time, hadn’t even looked her way for so long that she was starting to wonder if he’d forgotten she was even there.

What was wrong? What had happened to her father?

This morning, when he and Kevin had taken off to go fishing, he’d seemed fine. Was it really possible for someone to go crazy in just a few hours? She thought about Kevin. Where was he? Had her father taken her brother home before coming to Rayette’s to pick her up?

She stole another glance at the face lit only by the glow of the dash lights. Though the features were still recognizable as those of her father, they had taken on an evil cast that chilled her blood. And when he’d glanced at her a moment ago, she had had the terrible feeling that he was planning what he was going to do to her.

As the motor home left the interstate, Heather leaned forward, searching for something — anything — that would give her a clue as to where they were. If they were coming to a town — even just a gas station — she could make a run for the door before he could stop the van and jump out, even if it was still moving.

“Fasten your seat belt, Heather. And put your hands on the dashboard.”

His hard, cold voice — a voice she’d never heard from her father — made her instantly obey the order.

The motor home slowed further, and the man in the driver’s seat — the man who looked like her father, but who she knew was not — spoke again.

“Don’t think of trying to get out. I’m much stronger than you, and if you try to get to the door, I’ll stop you. And I’ll make you wish you hadn’t tried to get away from me.”

Heather’s heart pounded. What did he mean? What would he do? As the motor home turned left, and Heather finally recognized the main street of Snoqualmie village, she searched for someone who might be able to help her. But the street was deserted, swept bare of traffic by the ferocity of the storm.

A sob, not just of terror, but of frustration, bubbled out of her throat. If there was no one to help her in the town, she would have no hope at all once they had passed it by and left its lights behind.

As they reached the edge of the village, the man spoke. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you, Heather?”

Heather, too numbed even to think, nodded mutely.

“You know I’m not your father, don’t you?”

Again Heather could only nod.

“Do you know who I am?”

Now she shook her head, but something in his voice made her turn and look at him.

He was smiling, but it was a smile with no warmth in it.

He was staring at her, his cold eyes boring into her.

“My name is Richard Kraven,” he said.

Heather felt a terrible numbness spread through her. What did he mean? Richard Kraven was dead! He’d been executed the day her father had his heart attack! Yet even as her mind tried to deny it, she somehow knew that the words the man had spoken were true. Though this man’s flesh and bones were those of her father, his voice and his eyes told her he was not. “What do you want?” she breathed, her voice barely audible.

Richard Kraven’s cold smile widened. “I want to touch you, Heather,” he said. “I want to touch your heart.”

“This is crazy,” Anne Jeffers said. She had no idea where they were — they hadn’t seen a sign for miles, and except for them, the narrow highway winding along the river was utterly deserted. Beyond the confínes of Mark Blakemoor’s car a dense blackness seemed to absorb the glow of the headlights, the slashing rain cutting visibility to no more than a few yards. Mark had been forced by the intensity of the storm to slow to little more than a crawl, and Anne’s feeling that it was a mistake to have come up here was growing by the second. A flash of lightning burst above them, instantly followed by a crack of thunder so sharp it made Anne jump in her seat. “We’ve got to go back, Mark! This is insane! We don’t even know where we are!”

“We’re almost to the campground where they found Edna Kraven this morning,” Mark replied. “Kevin said the place they were fishing wasn’t very much farther up the road. We’ll check those, then—”

The police radio crackled to life, and Mark snatched up the microphone.

“Go ahead.”

“Turns out your R.V. has a cell phone, and we got a trace on it,” a barely audible voice, almost lost in the static caused by the storm, said.

Anne seemed about to speak, but Mark shook his head, leaning toward the radio’s speaker as he strained to catch the crackling words. But only some garbled static came through the speaker.

“Say again!” Mark shouted into the microphone. “We’ve got a lot of static!”

The radio’s speaker crackled again, and from somewhere in the cacophony of background noise a single word emerged.

Snoqualmie.

There was more, but again it was drowned out by static, and when the next transmission came through, nothing was audible at all. “Doesn’t matter,” Mark muttered. “They’re up here.” His eyes barely left the road as he quickly told Anne what had happened: “Cellular phones are almost like a homing device — they always stay in contact with the system. You can’t pin them down exactly, but you can get the general area they’re operating out of.” Without thinking, he reached out and took Anne’s hand, squeezing it gently. “We’ll find them. Just hang on. We’ll find them.”

The car continued creeping up the grade, and finally they came to the campground, but when Mark saw that not only was the police tape still hanging across the road leading into it, but that the gate was closed and locked as well, he didn’t even try to turn in. A mile and a half farther up the road, just as he was starting to wonder if Kevin had remembered where he’d been as well as he thought he had, the small sign for the turnoff to the right appeared out of the blackness. When he came to the entrance to the narrow lane a few moments later, he brought the car to a stop. The dirt track, already deeply rutted by a stream of water, was impassable by anything but a four-wheel drive. Mark might get the sedan down, but he would never get it up again, at least not tonight.