Allison Brennan - Fear No Evil

“She lied.”

“No,” Kate said emphatically. “She didn’t. I just didn’t understand what she had planned.”

“She lied to you.”

“No, dammit!”

“She lied and died and you’ve been blaming yourself because you can’t blame your dead friend.”

“Paige was the closest thing I had to family! Mine was nonexistent. A mother who couldn’t look at me, elderly grandparents who didn’t talk to me, and when they died, I was shuffled from stranger to stranger. Paige…she was closer than blood. I’m not going to taint her name.”

Kate’s eyes were red, sweat glistened on her brow. “You don’t know how she died. How she was brutalized. You didn’t see her body, shredded. Blood everywhere. Her eyes-”

Dillon pulled Kate to him, held her while her body shook with soundless sobs.

The truth, at last.

His phone vibrated and Kate jumped back. She gave him an odd half-smile, embarrassed. He touched her cheek. “It’s okay, Kate. I don’t think you’re weak. It takes a strong person to be honest with others, but the strongest people are honest with themselves.”

He looked at the phone, showed Peterson’s message to Kate.

Adam Scott, 39. Expelled from Stonebridge, disappeared for six years. We’re tracking his finances now. There was a death at the school Scott and Morton attended-a kid named Trevor Conrad. We’re looking into him as well as another guy, Paul Ullman, who was Scott’s roommate. Tell Kate that Mick Mallory is undercover and will take down Trask/Scott first chance he gets. Be careful.

“Mallory,” Kate muttered.

“Know him?”

“No, but I’ve heard of him. And he and Jeff Merritt were close. Merritt must have sent him in.” She frowned. “I don’t understand why. How do we have someone on the inside, but Trask-Adam Scott-still got to Lucy?”

“Good question,” Dillon said.

“Give Peterson the coordinates. But,” Kate implored him, “make him understand that they must use extreme caution. Not just for their safety, but for Lucy’s.” She didn’t know if she was doing the right thing, but she’d agreed when they left Mexico that they would tell the FBI what they’d learned. She had to live up to her word. She wanted Dillon to trust her. To believe in her.

Dillon nodded, typed in the message.

Kate glanced at her watch, started pacing again. “It’s been thirty minutes. They should be done.”

“Impatient, impatient.” Jack sauntered into the room. “We’re fueled up and I downloaded some maps of the area. It’s just shy of nine hundred miles to a small airstrip outside Bellingham. It’ll take me forty-five minutes to get from the base of Mount Baker to the campground. I also have a copter on alert. A pal of mine in Canada. He’s going to meet us at the airstrip, take you to an island near the one you think Lucy is on.”

“Why do we need a helicopter?” Dillon asked.

“I pulled down a map of the island Kate thinks Lucy is on. No way to land anything, even a copter-”

“We can’t hit the island from above,” Kate interrupted. “They’ll hear. We need to take a boat and-”

Jack held his hands up. “Do I look stupid? I have a safe landing spot and a boat ready for you ten miles from the island. Hank will land the copter and get you situated. You’ll be in communication with him, and if you need an emergency pickup he’ll be there. I trust him.”

Dillon raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Jack didn’t seem like the type of man to trust anyone, yet he had this mercenary base-which might or might not be run by the U.S. military-in the middle of the Nevada desert, and a convenient pal up in the Pacific Northwest who just happened to have a helicopter.

“And you’re going to take my plane?” Kate said.

“You mean Professor Fox’s plane?”

She glared at him.

“It sounds like a good plan,” Dillon intervened. “Let’s go.”

Dillon watched as Jack and Kate bickered about the plan. He held back and looked at the message from Peterson.

I can’t get clearance for backup yet, but I will be there. Be damn careful.

“Move it, Dil,” Jack called back. “Time is running out.”

Dillon tensed. Jack didn’t have to tell him that. And with only the three of them-four if Quinn Peterson made it in time-Dillon didn’t know if anyone was going to get out alive.

For eight hours Lucy had been locked in the bathroom. She drank water from the sink, but other than that had no food and felt drained. Defeated.

She slept on and off, laying down in the bathtub after an hour when no one came back for her.

What was going on? Why did they take her off the camera? She was grateful, but…

Grateful ? Grateful that she had a towel and water and wasn’t being raped? Pathetic, Lucy. Just pathetic. Was this the Stockholm syndrome? Was she going to do anything for them just so they didn’t hurt her again? Thank them for the water?

Get a grip, Luce. This is like torture. Head games. Making you sweat it out, trying to break you.

She had slept through the sunrise, because when she opened her eyes the room wasn’t dark, light was filtering in through the skylight. The dancing dust particles caught in the sunlight were surprisingly beautiful. For the first time, she felt hope…that she just might get out of this. That maybe God was watching out for her.

The door opened and she stifled a scream.

Denise was naked. Her face was swollen, her breasts cut and bleeding, and she was limping.

“Oh my God,” Lucy said without thinking about how Denise had hurt her earlier. “Are you okay?” Stupid question. “Let me help…”

Denise stared at her as if she were insane. Maybe she was, but this woman was in pain. Blood ran down her legs. Lucy took off the towel she was wearing, unmindful of her nudity as she handed it to Denise.

That was when she saw Roger in the doorway. “You’re next.”

Lucy started shaking. She stepped back, almost fell into the tub.

Denise grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the bathroom and into Roger. Lucy jumped backward.

“I need to shower.” Denise shut and locked the door.

Lucy stood there naked, Roger staring at her. She tried to cover herself.

Roger laughed.

“Come on, princess. Your fans are getting restless. Denise is used, they want fresh meat.”

“Please, don’t-”

“Save it for the camera.”

He grabbed her wrists, pulled them behind her back. A man in the corner of the room made crude gyrations with his pelvis. She turned away.

Hope disintegrated.

AS SOON AS THEY WERE AIRBORNE, Jack offered to fly. Dillon was surprised when Kate relinquished the controls and sat in the back. She took out her laptop and booted it up.

Dillon glanced at his brother. “Thanks, Jack.”

“Thank me when we rescue Lucy. Do you have an update on Patrick?”

“Same.”

“Shit,” Kate said from the rear of the Cessna.

Dillon got out of his seat and, hunched over, carefully made his way to the seat next to Kate. “What?”

“You don’t want to see this.”

“I have to.”

She turned her laptop to face him.

Dillon stared at the screen, his heart pounding as his fists opened and closed.

He wanted to punch something. Someone. The bastard who was raping Lucy. He would kill him, so help him God. He would kill him with his bare hands.

But the rape was almost not as bad as the poll in the corner of the screen.

Vote Now!

How should Lucy “die”?

o Stabbing

o Strangulation

o Suffocation

The time stamp was 16:54:00. They had less than seventeen hours to rescue Lucy and they were still four hours out of Washington.