Caught in the Storm (9 page)

He stopped, his hands resting on his knees, his breath coming in deep, ragged gasps, searching, always keeping his eyes open to make sure Jeremy didn’t sneak up on him. He’d caught a glimpse of him further up the trail; he knew he was around here somewhere.

Limping back to the motel, he cursed himself for letting Jeremy get away and for not keeping track of Kat. Hoping she was still back at the motel was the only thing that kept him going. His knee was throbbing and he could barely put any weight on it, but he had to get back to her. She was his sole motivation for putting one foot in front of the other, knowing that Jeremy could sneak up behind him at any point and bash his brains in.

Kat paced back and forth by Jackson’s wrecked Camaro. The woman who ran into his car said she swerved to miss a cat. The police had shown up and were getting the information from her. Kat had called Evie figuring she was the best, since Jackson was her brother. She didn’t want to worry Lexi and if she had called Noah, Lexi would have been worried.

Kat felt so exposed out here by herself, and she worried about Jackson. She was worried that somehow Jeremy had gotten the upper hand and killed Jackson. What would she do if she lost him just as she found him again? When she heard a powerful engine pull up she glanced over knowing it was Evie, what she wasn’t ready for was Anthony with her. She should have known he’d come with her, but still, seeing him right now when she was just about crawling out of her skin waiting for Jackson to return, was almost more than she could stand.

“Where is he?” Evie demanded.

Kat spread her hands out. “I don’t know. He took off out the back door after Jeremy. He hasn’t come back.”

“How long has it been?”

“I don’t know, it seems like forever.”

“What
do
you know?”

“Evie. Be nice. Think of how you’d be in this situation,” Anthony calmly stated.

“Damn it! My brother is out there running around with some psychopath and we’re just standing here …” Evie stopped when from around the corner of the building they saw Jackson limp toward them.

“Jackson!” Kat raced toward him and didn’t notice Anthony hold Evie back from following her.

“I was so worried.” She buried her face in his neck and wrapped her arms around him. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

“Oh, baby, you don’t have to worry about me.” He squeezed her tightly. “He got away. And it looks like my Camaro is totaled. This is shaping up to be a great day.”

“Yeah, and now your sister is here.”

He looked over at Evie. “What’s she doing here?”

“I called her. I knew we were going to need a ride and I figured out of everyone she was probably the best one to call.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Shit. There’s going to be hell to pay when she figures everything out.”

Kat knew he wasn’t just talking about their adventure today, but the fact that they were more than just a couple of people working together.

“Let’s check out his room, with everything going on I hadn’t had a chance to.”

“Well, I’m glad you didn’t go in there, if he had doubled-back I’d hate for him to have caught you in there. Let’s see what we can find before we have to talk to the cops.”

As they walked to his room, she noticed that Evie and Anthony were following closely behind them. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

“Yeah, there’s no way she’d miss out on this. We’re going to have to make it quick.” Jackson nodded toward the cops. “Looks like they are almost done with the lady who hit my car.”

They all entered the room at the same time and without a word to each other, started searching it. Everything seemed normal; nothing out of the ordinary until Anthony pulled up the mattress and in-between was a diary. They all looked at each other. Evie finally reached down and grabbed it, putting it in her purse while Anthony put the bed back the way it was. They had just turned around when a police officer came to the door to ask them questions.

      She couldn’t believe her luck. Everything had worked out the best way possible. Jeremy was on the run, but she had a way to track him so wherever he showed up, she’d be able to continue her surveillance. She had also just cleaned his room so well, finding any kind of DNA was going to be difficult, especially since he’d also spent a great deal of time doing his own cleaning. Nothing was lost, and as a bonus no one paid much attention to her because they were all too busy worrying about where Jeremy was. Being that close to four of the central players, especially Anthony who looked so much like Jeremy it was frightening, without them knowing who she was made her feel powerful, like she could do anything to anyone and get away with it.

The image of her standing strong, while men bowed to her, was completely different from the image of her growing up. This image she craved, this was the one she wanted to become.

Jeremy clutched the picture he had just found in his journal in his hand. He’d kept it with him since he discovered it. He had no idea where it came from, could he have taken it and not remembered? So many things were becoming fuzzy now. He sat on the ground looking at it, at them. He was outside the restaurant that night, right? Not inside. No, not inside. Then how did this picture end up in his journal? When was it taken?

He brought the picture up to his face and licked them; his eyes closed in pleasure, dreaming of the day when he’d be able to lick their dead bodies from head to toe.

Jackson sat with his foot propped up on the coffee table and a huge bag of ice wrapped around his knee. He could tell that Kat was full of nervous energy, as she never sat still. He felt like someone was staring at him; looking over, he saw his sister giving him the evil eye before looking at Kat. He knew this wasn’t going to end well. He only hoped that Evie would talk with him before going off on Kat. Hoping to distract her, he tried to bring the focus back to Jeremy. “Anything useful?” he asked Anthony.

Flipping through some of the pages, Anthony looked up at Jackson after a moment, his eyes haunted. “Too much. We know he’s a monster, but he’s truly obsessed with the three of them. He sees them as failures, as what turned his luck from good to bad. He feels if he can somehow kill them ‘again’, his words not mine; he will get his luck back.”

“Then there is this.” Anthony showed them the pages and pages of Jeremy’s writing; their names crossed out along with things like ‘fuck them while they die’, ‘save their blood, mix and drink’, ‘burn it out of them’, ‘remove eyes and cut into little pieces’, ‘shred tongue while still alive’, I could go on. They only get worse from here.”

After a moment, Anthony continued, “There are times when he thinks he killed them and they have somehow come back from the dead to torment him. He’s trying to find a way to kill them for good. But also, he knows he can’t live forever. He wants to know what the secret is to coming back from the dead.”

“What the fuck? Can he get any more demented?” Evie asked.

“Do you really want to ask that question? You’ll jinx it and he will,” Lexi replied dryly.

“Does it say anything about what his plans are?” Noah asked as he rubbed Lexi’s back.

“He wants to kill all three of them together. He feels that is the best way; however, he’s not opposed to killing them one by one. As far as I can tell, he’s going to keep them somewhere alive until he’s got all three. But if he ends up killing one, or more, before all three are together, he’s fine with that. He’ll just ‘preserve’ the bodies. He thinks he is smarter than us. He knows what is going on and will use it to his advantage.”

“So, what? All of this is for nothing?” Kat asked. “He’ll get to us anyway?”

“No, it’s not for nothing. We are all in this together. We’ll win, and I’ll tell you why.” Kat edged closer to Anthony as he spoke. He held the book out to her. “What do you see here?”

With shaking hands, she took the book from him and started to read aloud. “I’ve been so lost for so many years. Why do they all leave me? Mommy? Where are you? Fucking whore. No one leaves me. I’ll fuck you when you’re dead just like dear old Dad did to Mom after he killed her in front of me. Why won’t they stay? Am I that unlovable? Mommy I need you. I’m so tired of hiding like you told me to.”

“I think he’s starting to lose it. This may be the edge we need to take him down,” Noah said.

“That’s what I was thinking as I read this. He goes from very organized thoughts and plans in the beginning to rambling on and switching thoughts and plans.” Anthony took the book back from Kat and pointed to a specific place in the book. “Here, this is where he goes from one extreme to the other. ‘They know everything, they’ve found everything, I couldn’t kill her, and I couldn’t kill them. I’m a failure. This is the only link to my past, this dirty journal; everything else is gone. Gone. Gone like her soul. The soul I could never possess. They’re mine. All mine. Where are my pictures? Where are my tools? I need to kill. No wait, I need to run. I haven’t had to run since my father was alive. Why, why Daddy, why did you beat me? Why couldn’t Mommy leave? Why did she want to leave without me? Kill. Kill. I need to kill them all.’” Anthony shook his head as if trying to get the words out of his mind. “That was dated the day after he tried to kill Evie. The day he became the hunted.”