Julia Spencer-Fleming - To Darkness And To Death

“It’s my sister.”

The voice was so low Shaun wasn’t sure he had heard what he thought he heard. “Your sister?”

Eugene bent over, hands on his knees, nodding.

“Bullshit,” Shaun said. “I spoke with one of the search and rescue team. Your sister’s been found.”

Eugene shook his head. “No. That’s what I told him. To get rid of them.”

“The ambulance passed me on the road! Don’t tell me the paramedics were hauling ass to the hospital because you told them to.”

“I don’t know who they actually found! Somebody they mistook for my sister!”

“There was another woman, hurt and unable to tell anybody who she is, who just happened to be found on your property. And you’ve got your sister, who everybody thinks is this injured woman, locked up in a tower.” Shaun stared at van der Hoeven, amazed that he had sweated bullets over pitching a partnership deal to this guy. “You are one sick freak,” he said, and strode up to the gallery.

“Wait!” Eugene scrambled after him. “Goddammit, wait!”

Shaun reached for the iron door handle. Eugene knocked him out of the way. Shaun stumbled back. The door swung open, and a blond battering ram exploded from out of nowhere, head-butting van der Hoeven in the gut, sending him flying into the next level of stairs.

Shaun caught a glimpse of wild, panicked eyes and a mass of hair before the woman’s unchecked momentum sent her sprawling on the floor. Her hands and feet were bound, and she was squalling loudly, in a horrifyingly voiceless way that made him wonder if she was a deaf mute-or worse, if her tongue had been cut out.

“Christ,” he said. “Holy Christ.” He turned, ready to hammer van der Hoeven into the floor. The younger man’s blow caught him by surprise and sent him reeling. He clawed at thin air, desperate for a purchase to stop him from a fatal tumble backward down the stairs. He twisted, grabbed the edge of the archway, and stumbled forward.

Eugene pounced on the woman, seizing her ankles and dragging her back into the room. Shaun lurched toward them, knocking into van der Hoeven, but the other man was ready for him this time and rolled back with the blow, sending Shaun sprawling onto the floor inside the room. Eugene tried to grab the woman’s ankles again, but she twisted and kicked so violently that he gave up and shoved his hands beneath her torso instead, shoving her with enough force to flip her over.

Shaun staggered to his hands and knees, shaking his head to clear it. The woman-the girl, she looked young enough to be his daughter-grunted and groaned as van der Hoeven shoved her even farther away from the door, but he could see the gag preventing her voice from spilling out. She was still fully dressed, so the bastard hadn’t molested her yet-

Van der Hoeven straightened. Dug a long iron key out of his pocket. Sprang for the door. The door with the decorative lock that must, Shaun realized, be fully functional. The bastard was going to lock him in.

It had been over thirty years, but by God he still remembered how to tackle. Eugene went down, half in and half out of the doorway. The key thunked on wood somewhere beyond his head, but as soon as Shaun loosened his hold to climb off the floor, van der Hoeven kicked him in the face. Shaun howled, clutching at his nose, blood spurting from between his fingers. Eugene was all over him, punching, clawing, shrieking, “Leave her alone! I’m protecting her! Leave her alone!”

Roaring, Shaun surged to his feet, using his weight to slam van der Hoeven backward. “Give me the goddam key!” he snarled.

Van der Hoeven rolled, faster than Shaun would have thought possible, his hand closing over the key. He continued to roll, evading Shaun’s lunge, scrambling to his feet. He kicked up, like a kid playing soccer, and connected with Shaun’s breastbone. His air rushed out so fast Shaun thought a lung was collapsing, and his heart-he clutched at his chest. Jesus Christ, was he having a heart attack?

“I told you to leave!” Eugene rushed him. Shaun, still flailing and airless, feebly warded off the blow. “I told you!” He slammed into Shaun again, sending him tottering through the open door.

Shaun tried to demand van der Hoeven let the girl go, but he was wheezing so hard, what emerged was “Let… girl…” and a series of gasps.

“She’s here for her own protection,” Eugene said, and his hand closed over the edge of the door, and Shaun saw what was going to happen, saw himself imprisoned by this lunatic, this fucking rich man’s son who hid out in the woods so no one knew he had gone insane, and his rage and fear filled him up until it stretched his skin and then even the bounds of his body couldn’t hold it back and he was surging, up, forward, plowing into van der Hoeven with all the force his seventeen-year-old self had used plowing into a row of defensive linebackers and the key arched out of van der Hoeven’s hand and Shaun roared and they thudded against something hard and unyielding and van der Hoeven tilted-

– and there was a moment, before gravity caught him, his eyes wild with fear, looking at Shaun, begging him, begging him-

Shaun slammed forward. Eugene fell over the gallery rail, screaming, screaming until there was a wet thud and the scream cut short.

Shaun stared at the unmoving figure that used to be Eugene van der Hoeven. There was noise around him: the rattle and rustle of the wind in the November trees, the cawing of crows, a rhythmic muffled whine behind him. But he was staring down into a well of silence, into a place where noise and movement and life were swallowed and went still.

He stared and stared, waiting for an arm to twitch, for a chest to heave upward, knowing as he did so that it wasn’t going to happen. The rhythmic noise wormed its way into his frozen brain, first as a whine, then as an annoyance, and then, as his brain unfroze and the living world closed over the well, as a fear.

He whirled. The blonde in the room had squirmed across the floor and was inching her way into a standing position against the far wall. She met his eyes, and he could see she was terrified.

“It’s okay,” he said, approaching her. She shrank against the wall in a way that made him feel like a loathsome worm. “Really. It’s okay. He can’t hurt you.” He reached for her duct-tape gag. She flinched away, her eyes flooding with tears. “I’m going to take this off. I’m sorry, but it’s going to hurt.” He pried off a tiny edge while she stood, trembling, and then yanked as hard as he could.

She made a noise he would never forget as long as he lived-half scream, half wail. “You killed my brother,” she said, her heart breaking in her voice. “You killed my brother. I saw you.”

Shaun stood there, the duct tape dangling stupidly from his fingers, while the young woman sobbed. “Your… brother.”

She nodded.

“You’re Millie van der Hoeven?”

She nodded.

He was utterly lost. What was going on? Were they into some sick bondage fantasy? “What the hell was he doing with you up here?” he asked.

Her lunge took him by surprise. He fell heavily backward, Millie thudding on top of him. With her hands held behind her back, she tried to hit him with her head. He shoved her away roughly and scrambled to his feet.

“He was trying to rescue me,” she said, her voice twisted by grief and rage.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Shaun’s confusion was settling into his stomach as an ache and an anger. He had rescued this girl, goddammit. She should at least show him some gratitude. Not try to club him unconscious with her skull. “You were the one who knocked him on his ass when he came through the door! Don’t tell me that’s how you get rescued.”