Dark Paradise (73 page)

crazy angle and Clyde was hell-bent on hurling them down it headlong.

Then the thicket of growth to their right ripped open, and a woman burst

through, naked and bleeding, her eyes huge and her mouth open in terror.

Her scream was swallowed up by another crack of lightning. Hands

outstretched in desperation, she flung herself at the mule.

As in a dream, everything seemed to go to slow motion. The woman lunging

at them. Clyde bolting sideways with such power that Marilee felt

herself coming out of the saddle. She pulled back on the reins,

realizing a split second too late that she had hold of only the right

one and that in hauling it back she seated her own fate.

Jerked off balance, Clyde went down heavily, flipping ass over teakettle

down the grade. Already half out of the saddle, Marilee was flung clear

of the tangle of hooves and thrashing legs. She hit the ground hard and

tumbled like a rag doll, end over end. The dead stump of a broken pine

tree brought her to an abrupt halt. Dazed, she lay there among the dead

leaves and pine needles, her ears ringing, her eyes crossed, pain

telegraphing along her entire network of nerve endings.

The woman ran toward her, a trio of ragged, bloody images.

"Help me!
 
God, please help me!
 
Please!" Hysterical, she flung herself

down on her knees and began pulling at Marilee's arms.

Marilee shoved herself up into a sitting position, thrusting an arm out

to fend off the woman's frantic pawing.

"Stop it!" she ordered, scrambling to get her feet under her despite the

dizziness. Terror gripped her by the throat shook her hard. She couldn't

think beyond the moment, couldn't see beyond the woman with her ragged

black hair and wild dark eyes and slashed face, and her hands,

grotesquely swollen and purple, grabbing at her clothes. She wanted to

push her away and run. Then recognition hit as the lightning snapped

across the sky.

"Jesus," she muttered, stunned. "Samantha?
 
Oh, my God!
 
Samantha?" She

managed to get hold of the girl by her shoulders and she shook her hard,

as if she might shake the panic out of her. "What happened?
 
Who did

this to you?"

Samantha tried to control her terror, but a wild keening sound strained

up out of her throat and tears came scalding out of her eyes and down

her cheeks. "Run!
 
We have to run!
 
She'll kill us!"

"Who!"

"Sharon!
 
She'll kill us!" She doubled over from the pain and the fear,

sobbing. "She killed that other woman. She'll kill us too!"

Sharon.

"Oh, shit," Marilee mumbled as a chill poured down her back and arms and

legs, raising goose bumps in its wake.

She stared at Samantha in shock and disbelief. The beautiful long hair

had been chopped off savagely. Her face was filthy and tear-streaked,

the cut that bisected it open and raw. She was naked except for the

dirty rag that had once been a T-shirt, and her arms and legs were

lashed with tiny cuts and dirt and bits of bark and dead leaf.

"Sharon did this to you?" she said, shrugging out of her denim jacket.

She tried to give it to the girl, but Samantha either couldn't grasp it

with her purple hands or was too consumed by her terror to think of what

to do with it. Marilee took hold of one of her arms and awkwardly worked

it into the sleeve.

"She's crazy!" Samantha cried. "We have to run!"

She tried to grab Marilee by the arm to drag her down the trail where

the mule had disappeared. Her fingers fumbled on the ends of her hands

like sausage links, numb and useless. The baying of the hounds in the

distance triggered a need to scream, but she stifled it to a pitiful

mewing that seeped out between her teeth with bubbles of spittle.

"Hurry!" she begged.

Marilee looked around them, not able to see anything but the dark trunks

of the trees. She thought the sound of the dogs had come from down the

hill. She had no clue as to where they were on the mountain. A good long

way from home, she was willing to bet. The only thing she knew for

certain was that up the mountain Del Rafferty had a cabin and an arsenal

of weapons large enough to fend off an army.

"This way," she ordered. She grabbed Samantha by a coat sleeve and

started up the way she had come down.

"Up the mountain!
 
Are you crazy!
 
She'll be on us in no time!
 
"

"We go up, she has to go up too," Marilee said as she climbed.

"She's on a horse!"

"Christ." She cast a hopeless look down the hill. Clyde was long gone.

All they had was themselves. And snarling dogs on their tails. And a

murderous psychotic after them.

She turned to Samantha. "Look, Sam, we don't have any options here. Del

Rafferty's cabin is this way. If we can get to Del, we'll be safe." She

started up the trail again, adding under her breath, "Provided he

doesn't shoot us."

They climbed the steady grade as fat raindrops plummeted down through

the cover of the trees. Marilee prayed for a downpour. No one listened.

The clouds hung over the mountain, snarling and snapping, but holding

their water. Between thunderclaps the baying of the dogs grew steadily

closer.

This was what it had been like for Lucy. Tracked down by dogs, run down

like a rabbit and shot for sport. Marilee could feel Sharon Russell

behind them, could sense her presence as ominous as the storm clouds

above, and clogged her throat and shot through her mind in bright, hot

arcs. She had to fight to keep her thoughts straight. She had to think.

Their brains were the only weapons they had.

Sharon was on a horse. She had dogs. She could have been on them by now

if she wanted. This was some kind of sick game to her. In a corner of

her brain Marilee wondered if insanity had pushed Sharon to this or if

the decadence of her life-style had lured her further and further out

into the waters of depravity until the depths were bottomless - the way it

had pulled Lucy deeper and deeper, until blackmail seemed like an

acceptable profession. At least Lucy had posed a threat. Samantha was

just a kid who knew nothing of Bryce's world. What could she possibly

have done to deserve this?

What could they possibly do to escape?

They were too far from Del's cabin. She knew that, but she kept on

putting one foot in front of the other and pushing herself up the trail.

Samantha ran behind her, beyond exhaustion, choking on her fear, broken

sobs catching in her throat. Her legs were rubber beneath her. She

wanted nothing more than to lie down in a ball and have the nightmare be

over, but it went on and on. She wanted to be held and comforted.

She wanted Will. Stupid to think of him now. Stupid to want him when he

didn't want her.

They broke out of the woods onto the edge of a meadow. Marilee stopped

and stood bent over with her hands on her knees, her lungs working like

a pair of bellows. The wind had come up and the tall grass rippled and

waved, the shades of green altering with every movement the way velvet

looks when a hand draws across it.

The rain came a little harder. She recognized the place with a sense of

doom. This was where Lucy had met her end. Karma. The skin at the base

of her neck tingled.

They were both as good as dead. Sharon was after Samantha for reasons

known only to her own insane mind, but Marilee knew she would not

discriminate when it came to doling out the bullets. She wouldn't leave

a witness.

Sam sank down into the grass, pressing the heels of her purple hands

against her eyes,crying soundlessly. Marilee's heart broke looking at

her. The poor kid. Bryce had sucked her into his world for his own

purposes and she had gone, no doubt overwhelmed by the fine things and

the excitement and the celebrities. And Bryce's people had taken her in

and used her and abused her without a thought to her innocence.

Goddamn him. Goddamn the lot of them. How dare they come here and poison

this paradise. The anger that burned through her was proprietary,

territorial. Marilee didn't question it. There wasn't time.

The sound of the dogs breaking through the brush some distance back in

the woods pushed her upright.

"Come on, kiddo, let's haul ass."

"I can't," Samantha sobbed, facedown on the ground.

She already looked like a corpse, bloody and dirty, her limbs bent at

odd angles.

Marilee wanted to lie down beside her and offer comfort, but comfort

would likely get them killed sooner than later. She grabbed the girl by

the jacket collar and pulled her up to her knees.

"You damn well better!" she barked. Del's place was still a long hike up

some steep and rugged ground. The only chance they had of making it was

if they kept moving and Sharon prolonged the hunt.

The crack of rifle fire dispelled the second possibility.

The bullet slammed into the same tree stump Del had struck the first day

Marilee had ridden up here. Rotted wood splintered in all directions.

Sam screamed, doubling over as if the bullet had passed through her. She

pressed her hands over her ears and screamed again.

Marilee shoved her roughly toward the cover on the hillside, yelling,

"Go! Go! Go!" and pushing the girl onward and upward.

From the deep cover of the woods behind them, the eerie sound of

laughter floated through the rain, and Marilee's blood ran like ice in

her veins.

God help them. They were both as good as dead.

"I'll kill her."

Will braced himself on the passenger side of J.D.'s truck with one hand

on the dash and one on the door.

Explosions of pain went off inside him with every bump and jerk of the

truck as it roared up the old logging trail.

The fire in his ribs and back and head served only to temper his fury

into something as rigid and sharp as a steel blade. Images of the tale

Orvis had told kept flashing behind his eyeballs. Sam tied up. Bryce's

bitch cousin touching her. His vision misted red. He felt as though a

wild animal were in his chest, fighting to get out.

"I'll kill her," he snarled for the tenth time. "If she hurts Sam, I

swear, I'll fucking kill her."

J.D. shot him a look across the cab. "There's no chance Sam's there by

choice?" he asked carefully. The question left a bad taste in his mouth.

Will gaped at him, looking like a maniac with his battered face and

bugging eyes. "If you weren't driving, I'd beat the shit out of you for

that!
 
Jesus, J.D., you know Sam better than that!"

"I know she dumped you to hang out with Bryce's crowd."

"Bryce seduced her, that son of a bitch." The truck lurched over a mass

of exposed tree roots, and he hissed through his teeth and squeezed his

eyes shut for a second, then picked up with his threats. "I oughta kill

him too."

J.D. shifted down and gunned the engine. The old Ford screamed up a

steep incline, back end sliding sideways.

The headlights punched into the gloom of the fading day. Overhead, the

sky had turned the color of gunmetal and lightning broke across it in

brilliant spider-web lines. He prayed they would make Del's camp before

the deluge came. The old trail only grew steeper and rougher the higher

they went. Rain had the same effect as pouring grease down the ruts.

They had agreed the best and quickest route to Bryce's cabin north of

Five-Mile Creek was to drive to the summer cow camp and take horses down

across Red Bear Basin and over the Forest Service land to Bryce's neck

of the woods. J.D. didn't think Will was in any shape to ride, but he