Her Last Chance (22 page)

It was isolated but less than two
hours drive from NYC. The perfect kill zone. Pity he couldn’t stay longer.

Light from the hallway sparkled in
Josephine’s pale hair, made it translucent beside her fair skin. So beautiful.
He’d killed her once. The bitch who’d seduced his devout father and destroyed
his family.

She had been dead for a long time.

He’d enjoyed that day. The shock on
her face when his father had left and he’d found her still in the apartment
across the hall from where they were staying. They’d used the place to fuck,
not twenty feet from where his mother was cooking dinner. He’d killed her and
then spotted the shadowy figure on the fire escape. She’d been asleep. He’d
planned to kill her too, but when he’d grabbed her she’d been so frail and thin.
So miserably unloved. He’d let her go and always wondered why he’d been so
weak. Now he knew. It wasn’t weakness, it was some divine plan.

He’d never been able to recapture
the pure adrenaline rush of that first time, but now… Now he was going to get
his revenge, close the circle and finally be free.

Philip picked up the knife again
and ran it along his flesh, sucking his teeth as he sliced his skin.

He walked over and picked up the
canvas. The one he’d taken from her apartment in Greenwich. The color shone
with vivid light. Intensity, passion and hatred visible to the blindest
onlooker. It was unsigned. He propped it against the bed and took up a hammer,
standing over the woman’s limp body. His shadow fell across her as he felt the
weight and brought it down hard against the nail on the wall.

Josephine had painted blood and
pain as if she was intimately acquainted with it. But those memories were old.
Time for a refresher course.

***

Special Agent Steve
Dancer stumbled out of the back door of the Brooklyn PD and climbed into
Marsh’s Beemer, his face as white as china clay.

“You okay?” Marsh asked,
cataloguing the lines of strain around the other man’s mouth. He’d been patched
up, but still looked like shit.

Dancer nodded, clearly unable to
speak. Closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest. The only light was
the blotchy liquid reflection of yellow streetlights on the rain-splattered
windshield.

Christ
. Marsh couldn’t begin
to think what Dancer had gone through, but right now they needed to concentrate
on finding Josephine. There was no time for healing, no time for acceptance, or
recovery. No time for the man suffering by his side.

“I didn’t think I was ever going to
get out of there, boss.” Dancer twisted his face toward him and peered through
the dark interior. “Thanks.”

If it hadn’t been for Marsh pulling
strings, he wouldn’t have for a long time.

So much for law and order.

Marsh tightened his hands on the
leather steering wheel. The rule of law wasn’t enough to deal with an SOB who
twisted the rules and sacrificed people like a chess player sacrificed pawns.
Fear crawled up his belly and landed in his throat. Rain lashed down from a
moonless night, battering the glass and tempered steel that encased them.

“He’s got her, Steve.” His voice
vibrated. No matter how hard he gripped that wheel he couldn’t stop his fear
from leaking out.

“What?” The expression of defeat on
Dancer’s face morphed into alarm, then anger. “What about Vince?”

Marsh ground his teeth together and
bit down on his emotions. Sweat gathered on his skin despite the autumn chill.
He turned on the wipers, the dull rhythmic whoosh steadying his heart.

“Ran him over with an SUV.” Marsh
turned to the backseat, grabbed Dancer’s laptop that he’d retrieved from
Special Agent Walker—who hadn’t been able to crack the passwords anyway—and
maneuvered it awkwardly through the gap between the seats. “The Blade Hunter is
none other than Philip Faraday—”

“The art dealer?” Snarling, Steve
banged his head against the headrest. “That puny shit killed all those women?”

“And set you up.” Marsh finished,
“Yeah. Smarter than he looks.” He buried the acid terror beneath professional
impatience. “We’ve got to find him, before Josie ends up like Prudence Duvall.”

Blood leeched from Dancer’s face.

“She was still alive when the cops
got there, you know that? They could maybe have saved her.” Dancer frowned,
still concentrating on the past when Marsh needed him to think about the
future.

“Steve, I need you. We’ve got to
find Josie before he kills her too.” His voice broke.

Dancer gave him a blank look, which
suddenly cleared. “The transmitter?” He swiped his unruly hair out of his face
as he began to unzip the laptop from its case. “I’d forgotten about it.”

Marsh had implanted the transmitter
into Josephine without her knowledge last April when they’d been hoping she’d
lead them to Elizabeth. Right now that little bit of moral impropriety was the
only thing keeping an infinitesimal speck of hope alive in his heart.

Dancer booted up, battered through
a whole series of passwords to access encrypted files, fierce concentration on
his face. “Those transmitters may only last a couple of months. It could be
dead by now,” Dancer warned.

Marsh knew there was little hope,
but without that signal, Josephine was on her own with a vicious serial killer.
Gloria Faraday was telling them squat. Maybe she didn’t know anything, but
Walker had her in custody and Marsh hadn’t been able to get near her.

The need for air forced a breath
into his lungs as Dancer clicked on the tracking program.

Please God. Please God…

Dread and uncertainty ravaged his
nerves. Even if they found Josephine this second it might already be too late.
She might be dead. The SOB had had her for one-hundred and fifty-six minutes.
The terror was unbearable, crippling, and Marsh shoved the feelings away.
Concentrated on the need to
find
her. He needed to find her. She was
going to be OK. They were going to have a life together.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Thank God
.

“Where is she?” Grim determination
filled him. This bastard wasn’t getting away this time. Whatever he’d done to
Josephine Marsh was going to reap ten-fold on the twisted fucker’s body.

Dancer looked up. And Marsh knew he
was thinking the exact same thing.

“Signal is stationary. North Fork
of Long Island, but we don’t have an address yet. Should we alert the locals?”

Sticking the car in gear, Marsh
shook his head and checked his watch. “I don’t fancy their chances against this
guy. They’ll spook him and if Josephine isn’t already dead, she will be when
they arrive all sirens blazing.”

Steve stared intently at the screen
of the computer. “It might be better that way,” he said quietly.

“Goddamn it, Dancer, don’t quit on
me now.”

“How the hell are we going to get
there before he—” Dancer cut himself off, unable to say the words neither of
them wanted to hear.

“Call Walker and tell him to get
HRT ready.” Marsh scrambled in his pocket and lobbed his cell phone at Steve.
“First call Dora. I want a chopper and a pilot ready to fly at La Guardia in
fifteen minutes.”

“Ah fuck.” Dancer was terrified of
helicopters, but he dialed the number and got through to Dora straight away.

Marsh shot him a glance, but didn’t
say a word, just pressed his foot to the floor and headed for the
Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, turning on the siren and driving hard.

Chapter
Nineteen

____________________

L
ightning flared and thunder
vibrated through the air, waking her. Shivers wracked her body as she
registered the icy temperature.

Where am I?

Waves crashed, the scent of brine
pervading the air, so thick it filled her nostrils.
Mystic? Visiting
Elizabeth?
Her tongue felt swollen and parched; she tried to swallow but
there was no moisture in her mouth to ease the dryness. She went to sit up, but
had to lie back down as she reeled, breathing hard. Her brain was slow. The light
hurt. She turned away from it.

“Oh, good. You’re awake.”

A bolt of terror shot straight
through her. She tried to swallow, but the muscles bunched and clenched in her
dry throat, constricting her airway, choking her. She squinted, though her eyes
didn’t like it. She needed to see.

A man stood in front of her. Lean,
not overly tall; the cold steel of his eyes matching the knife that glinted in
the lamplight. Her oldest foe. The man who’d killed her mother and shaped her
life. Her arms and legs jerked instinctively, only to be brought up short by a
rope on each limb. She glanced upward and saw the painting she’d done of blood
and death hanging on the wall like the promise of a sacrifice.

The lights flickered as he watched
her.

“Why?” her voice cracked. The more
she strained, the tighter the bindings became, cutting off her blood supply,
making her hands and feet go numb.
Not good. Not good at all.
She forced
herself to relax.

“Why what?” His voice was as cold
and flat as his eyes.

Vague bits of memory floated along
her consciousness like fish darting in a pond.

The screech of car tires then
the muffled thump of a body hitting the asphalt.

“Is Vince okay?” she asked slowly.

He shrugged. “I doubt it. I hit him
pretty hard.” He smiled, but no light reached his eyes.

The horror of Vince being hurt made
her stomach wrench. And, oh god.
Marsh
. He was gonna freak and figure
this was all his fault—as if he could keep everyone he cared about safe when
this man was hell bent on destruction. Tears filled her eyes. The love she felt
for him was so strong, his dedication to the law so convincing, she’d almost
believed they had a chance of something normal. But this wasn’t normal, and if
the guy with the knife had his way she’d be dead soon. She didn’t want to be dead.
She didn’t want to miss her chance of something normal, something wonderful.

She was fully clothed. He’d taken
her boots, but thankfully not her clothes.
Yet
. There was blood on her
t-shirt and she frowned.

“Why?” she asked again. She
narrowed her eyes at him, glared with every ounce of hatred she held in her
heart. “Why are you doing this?”

He slapped her cheek. He stood
breathing heavily beside the bed, the knife gripped between whitened fingers.
And then she recognized him from a vague childhood memory.

“You’re the missionary’s son.”

Shadows flickered in the depths of
his eyes.

“I saw them together, you know.”

His eyes flashed.

“You don’t think their actions hurt
me just as much as they hurt you? You selfish miserable asshole.” Anger gave
her voice strength. “You killed her, didn’t you? You killed my mother.”

“Your mother was a whore.” Teeth
flashed as he bared them, leaning close. “She dragged my father into hell and
he burned!”

“He looked like he was in Heaven
the last time I saw him—”

Blood exploded on her tongue as he
backhanded her.

“
He
was a good man.”

“What the hell happened to you
then?” she yelled.

It was foolish. The knife was at
her throat, stinging her flesh as he held her down, hand so tight to her scalp
her eyes stung. They stared at one another for a long moment. The strength in
his body incredible, the light in his eyes pure evil.

“When I found you on that fire
escape I was going to kill you.” His breath touched her lip, the tiniest bit of
spittle hitting her. Revulsion was ice cold on her skin. “But you were so
pathetic, the look on your face. Sorrow. Heartbreak. Anguish.

“Maybe that’s why I didn’t kill
you—all that little girl innocence destroyed right in front of my eyes by
adults who should have known better.” He laughed and she flinched. “I felt
sorry
for you. Then when I looked for you again all these years later, and heard you
were an artist in NYC—I knew. You were waiting for me.” He glanced toward the
painting then looked back and caught her gaze. “It’s a circle of death and it
closes tonight.”

The light in his eyes was
crazed…and yet he seemed incredibly controlled as his fingers gripped her hair
and the knife, already slick with blood, pressed against her flesh. Fear was
growing inside her, the need to scream out her terror all consuming. He’d
admitted killing her mom without an ounce of compassion. The sonofabitch made
it sound like it had been her mother’s own fault.

“Did you kill
him
too?” God,
she hated him, with every atom of her being. “Your father? Did you kill that
cheating bastard?”

Breathing hard, he blinked,
released her and heaved himself away from the bed.

“She killed him.” He turned to face
the window as lightning illuminated everything in cold blue before thunder
shook the house again. “We’d been in Africa for ten years and the trip to
America was supposed to be special. My father offered to look after someone’s
plants while they were away on a week’s vacation.” He shrugged and walked
closer. “It was the sort of thing he did all the time. We never gave it any
thought, until I spotted the secretary from church walking along the sidewalk,
and I saw her go into that apartment. I knew what was going on then.” His eyes
grew hard again. “He committed suicide when we got back to Africa—condemned
himself to purgatory. Because of her.

“She was beautiful, your mother.”
He leaned over the bed, closer, and she held absolutely still as he nicked her
earlobe with the point of the knife. It hurt like hell, but she kept her mouth
shut.
I won’t kill you if you don’t make a sound
. “Just like you. She
cried so hard when I put my knife inside her.” His smile was evil incarnate. “She
screamed out my name.”

All these years she’d strived only
to survive; not to live, to survive. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough. “There’s
something wrong with you. You’re twisted and warped—”

He lunged at her, but she jerked to
the side, the knife sinking into the pillow beside her head.
Shit
. Why
the hell couldn’t she keep her mouth shut?

Because fear wasn’t enough.
Survival wasn’t enough.

But death didn’t look so great
either.

She froze as he lay sprawled on top
of her. She could feel his heartbeat thumping through his black sweater,
through her t-shirt and into her body. This was not a good time to discover she
needed help.

Marsh. Damn you. Save me.
Please, save me.

He moved until he sat astride her,
the fury in his eyes making her wish for their previous flatness.

The knife tore through her t-shirt
as if it were silk. Severed her bra with the same stroke and there she was,
exposed from the waist up, the indelible scars on her flesh catching the light
in a series of crosses.

“You like your handiwork?” The
bitterness was ripe on her tongue, but his mood had changed. The anger gone.
Calm back in its place. He slammed his fist into her jaw and the world tilted
on its axis as her eyes rolled back.

***

Riding through an
electrical storm in a helicopter was not a way to deal with someone’s phobia.
But right now he and Dancer were both facing their worst nightmares.

Marsh wore a dark t-shirt from the
gym bag he kept stowed in the trunk of his car. He’d left on the tailored
slacks because they were deep navy but swapped his shoes for dark-colored
trainers. Both he and Dancer had on bulletproof vests.

Walker had called them en route
with the news that Senator Duvall had a beach house in the vicinity of the
signal coming from Josie, and Marsh had to believe this was the right place. He
forced the image of her blood-soaked corpse from his mind.

Lightning flashed across the
heavens, making the froth of the breakers glow in the blackness of the night.
The pilot placed the chopper gently on the beach, sand whipping in every
direction. Trees struggled against the wind and rain blotted out the landscape.

Marsh could barely hear the chopper
over the storm. Dancer was deathly pale but had a determined look in his eyes
Marsh hadn’t seen before. This was personal. For both of them.

Marsh jogged up the sand, the
footing heavy, debris stinging his cheeks and making him squint. There it was,
up ahead—a rambling old beach house on the North Fork.

Marsh’s heart kicked up a gear as
he spotted a light on in one of the upstairs rooms.

Josie
.

He ran, not caring if Dancer could
keep up or not, desperate to get to Josie before Philip Faraday hurt her.

And still the loose sand slowed him
down, filled his running shoes and made his legs move agonizingly slowly. There
was grit in his mouth that he spat out.

It had come down to this.

With most law enforcement agencies
in the world looking for Faraday, it had come down to Marsh and Dancer running
along a sandy beach, racing to beat the clock.

Fuck.

There was a path up through the
dunes and Marsh took off, immediately hitting a boardwalk and picking up speed.
Dancer was right behind him, the thunder and wind drowning out any noise they
made.

Marsh crashed to a halt. There were
outdoor security lights.

Shit
.

Marsh didn’t know if they worked or
not. He looked up at the window and saw a shadow cross in front of it. And then
over the howl of the wind, over the boom of a storm-crazed sky, he was sure he
heard Josie screaming his name.