Karen Rose - Scream For Me

He did an abrupt U-turn, making Alex grab for something to hold on to. “What is it?” she asked, afraid to hear the answer.

He flicked on his lights. His speedometer had already climbed to eighty.

“That was Frank. He said he’s found Bailey.”

Alex sucked in a breath. “Alive?”

Daniel’s jaw was taut. “He says so.” He pressed a button on his phone. “Luke, I need you to turn around and meet me at…” He held the phone to Alex. “Tell him the address. Tell him it’s out past the old O’Brien mill. Susannah will know where that is.”

Which had been what “at least made sense.”

Alex did and Daniel took the phone back. “Frank Loomis says he’s found where they’re holding Bailey Crighton. Call Chase, have him send backup. I’m going to call Corchran in Arcadia. I trust him and he’s close by.” He listened and glanced at Alex. “That’s why I’m calling Corchran. He won’t get there too much after us. He can take Alex and Susannah.”

Alex didn’t argue. He looked too intense. Dangerous. She felt no threat to herself, but grim satisfaction that whoever crossed them would be forever sorry.

He hung up and handed her the phone. “Find Corchran’s number in my notebook and dial it, please.” She did and he quickly brought the Arcadia sheriff up to speed and requested his presence. He hung up again and put his phone back in his pocket.

“I thought you and Chase checked out O’Brien’s mill,” she said.

“The new mill, yes. I forgot about the old mill. I haven’t been out there since I was a little kid. It was just a pile of rubble even then.” A muscle in his jaw twitched. “When we get there, please stay in the car with your head down.” He looked at her, his gaze sharp and hard. “ Promise me. ”

“I promise.”

Friday, February 2, 3:15 p.m.

“It’s done.” Under the cover of the trees, Loomis pocketed his phone. “He’s coming.”

As if there had been any doubt. “Very good.”

“Now let me go. I’ll go pick Bailey and the girl up and take them to the hospital.”

“No. I need you to stay here. In fact, I need you to move.” He gestured with his pistol. “Out in the open.”

Loomis’s face showed his shock. “Why?”

“Because even Judas showed up to the Last Supper.”

Stunned realization dawned in Loomis’s eyes. “You’re going to kill Daniel.”

“Probably not me.” He shrugged. “You made the call to Vartanian. If you’re not here to meet him when he gets here, he’ll leave, and then my fun is spoiled. So move.”

“But Mansfield will see me,” Loomis said, disbelief making his voice high-pitched.

“Exactly.”

“And then he’ll kill me,” Loomis said, tonelessly now.

He smiled. “Exactly.”

“And he’ll kill Daniel. You planned to kill him all along.”

“And everyone took you for just a slack-jawed, hick sheriff. Move .” He waited until Loomis started to creep to the edge of the woods, then gave his silencer a good twist. “And just to make sure you don’t do something stupid like try to run…” He fired once into Loomis’s thigh. With an agonized cry, Loomis sank to the ground. “Get up,” he said coldly. “When you see Vartanian’s car drive up, you walk on out to meet him.”

Friday, February 2, 3:30 p.m.

“We have to go.” The captain of the small boat scanned the landscape nervously. “I’m not waiting for your boss any longer, not while I’m sitting on this kind of cargo.”

Mansfield tried his cell again, with no answer. “He was taking care of the ones who couldn’t travel. Let me go back and find him.” He leaped to the dock.

“Tell your boss I’m waitin’ five more minutes, then I’m gone.”

Mansfield turned, eying the man coldly. “You’ll wait till we get back.”

The captain shook his head. “I don’t take my orders from you. You’re wasting time.”

It was true. Nobody took orders from Mansfield. Not anymore. No thanks to Daniel-fucking-Vartanian. And whoever stirred up all this shit to start with-who, if Daniel had really been as smart as everyone always said he was, should have been caught already. But he wasn’t caught because Daniel was as big a fuck-up as everyone else.

Clenching his teeth, he pushed the heavy door aside and walked down the hall, frowning at the dead girls. What a waste. With a little time, they would have been fit for resale. Now they were useless.

His steps slowed as he approached the cell that had held the chaplain. The door was open, a body slumped over the threshold, but something wasn’t right. He drew his gun and soundlessly moved forward. Fuck. It was one of Harvard’s security guys, not the chaplain, as it should have been. Mansfield rolled him over and grimaced. The man had been ripped open, stem to stern.

Wiping his bloody hands on the guard’s pants, Mansfield checked the next cell. The door was ajar. And the cell was empty. Bailey was gone. He took off at a run, coming to a dead stop as he rounded the corner and nearly tripped over the body crumpled in a heap on the floor. Mansfield dropped to his knees, checking his pulse. Harvard was alive.

“The boat’s leaving in a few minutes. Get up.” Mansfield started to lift him only to have his hand pushed away.

“Bailey got away.” Harvard lifted his head, his eyes bleary. “Where’s Beardsley?”

“Gone.”

“Fuck. They can’t get far. Beardsley has a hole in his gut and Bailey’s shaking so hard she can barely walk. Find them before they bring the cops on our heads.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll live,” he said acidly. “Which is more than I can say for the two of us if we’re found here, with all these bodies.” He struggled to sit up and reached for his gun, but his holster was empty. “Dammit. Beardsley has my gun. Give me your backup.”

Mansfield pulled his pistol from his ankle holster.

“Now move your ass. Find Bailey and Beardsley and kill them.”

Friday, February 2, 3:30 p.m.

Frank was waiting for them outside what looked like a concrete bunker. The perimeter was overgrown with weeds and the road was pitted from disuse. Daniel checked his watch. Luke and Sheriff Corchran should be here any minute.

“What is this place?” Alex asked.

“It was the O’Brien paper mill back in the twenties. They upgraded to the new mill in my grandfather’s day, when the town got a railroad spur.” He pointed beyond the trees to where the Chattahoochee River flowed. “Before that, they used the river to bring logs in and move the paper out.”

“I thought you said it was a pile of rubble.”

“It was. That bunker’s new, and camouflaged well enough that we didn’t see it from the air.” He said no more, watching Frank, who was leaning against his squad car, watching them.

“What are you waiting for?” Alex hissed, her voice vibrating like a plucked string.

“Backup,” he said succinctly, not taking his eyes from Frank. “And Sheriff Corchran to take you to where it’s safe.” He heard her indrawn breath and knew she wanted to argue, but he knew she would not and he respected her for it. “I don’t want to get Bailey killed by going in there half-cocked, Alex. If she is in there and she’s alive, I want to bring her out that way for you.”

“I know.” The words were barely audible. “Thank you, Daniel.”

“Don’t thank me. Not for this. Shit.” Frank was coming toward them, lumbering almost, and it wasn’t until he was a foot away that Daniel saw the dark wet stain on his pants leg. “He’s been hit.” The hackles raised on the back of his neck and he put the car into reverse.

Alex unsnapped her seat belt, but he grabbed her arm. “Wait.”