Scream for Me (30 page)

Except…

When the trunk opened a few minutes later, when the rain and wind poured in, she didn’t find herself staring up at a man.

The brunette was before her. The brunette with the sad eyes. The pale skin.

And the gun in her hand.

Help me
.

Cadence had thought she was looking at a victim.

So damn not.

Cadence prepared to lunge at her, gun or no gun.

“He wants you inside.” The words were a whisper. The gun trembled in her shaking grasp. “If you try to get away now…”

Cadence had to strain to hear the words.

“He’ll kill me.”

Cadence wondered just
who
this was as she stared up at the brunette.

“He’s using dirt roads,” Dani said as she directed him after Cadence’s signal. “Cutting right through the woods.”

The roads weren’t easy to follow because the storm was washing them away.

The vehicle lunged forward. The wheels spun, losing traction in the thick mud.

“Left up ahead. Then straight. He must have a cabin in these woods, a place he’s using.”

A place they hadn’t found in their searches.

Two cop cars were behind him. Randall Hollings was in the lead patrol car. Heather Crenshaw was rushing after them.

Faster, faster…

“Her signal isn’t moving anymore,” Dani whispered. “Wherever he was taking her, she’s there.”

They weren’t. Fuck. He shoved the accelerator down harder, just as part of the road seemed to fall away.

Cadence didn’t move from the trunk. Her hair was soaked, her clothes clinging to her, but she didn’t move. “What’s your name?”

The woman glanced over her shoulder. “We have to hurry. He wants us inside.”

“Were you driving the car?”

A nod. Sad. “I’m s-sorry.” Hoarse. “Please…don’t make me sh-shoot you. Y-you have to…come inside.”

“Did he take you?”

The gun jerked in the woman’s hand. The bullet blasted out, burning a path over Cadence’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry!” The woman gasped out. “I—I didn’t mean to do th-that!”

“It’s okay,” Cadence whispered.
No, it’s not. She freaking just shot me
. Cadence climbed from the trunk, trying to move as carefully as she could. Her gaze tracked across the area. She couldn’t see any kind of landmarks. Just trees swaying too hard in the storm.

They’d driven up as they traveled. She’d felt the incline and she could see the trees slanted, drifting below her.

The gun shoved into her back. “Just…walk st-straight ahead. Please.”

It sounded like the woman was crying. Cadence started walking. “You didn’t answer me before.” She ignored the blood dripping down her arm, and the throbbing in her head that seemed to get worse with every step. “Did he take you, too?” The brunette was the right age for his victims, and Cadence tried to run through all of the images in her mind. Could she be Bridgette or Melanie? The hair color could have been dyed. The woman’s face was so thin and pale. Ravaged.

“Push through the bushes.”

Heavy bushes were in front of her. Cadence pushed through them, and saw only darkness.

Not another freaking cave
.

It was.

Goose bumps rose on her arms. “This connects with the other caverns, doesn’t it?” Jason had said the caverns stretched for at least fifty miles.

“Go inside.” The woman’s voice was even weaker now.

Cadence stepped inside.

Her captor—
victim
—followed her. The bushes seemed to spring right back into place, sealing them in the thick darkness of the cave. A darkness that deepened with every step.

“How can you see?” Cadence whispered.

“I’ve been d-down here…” The words broke. “A very long time. I don’t n-need to see anymore.”

Those words made her heart hurt.

Cadence stopped walking. Screw going farther. This woman’s safety took priority. Cadence would get her out, then she and Kyle would come back to hunt for the others in this cave. “I can help
you,” she said to the woman. “Let’s go now. Let’s get into the car and I can take you to the police station.”

“No!” Her shout echoed through the cave.

There was fear in that denial. So much fear.

“Y-you can’t h-help me,” the woman said. Softer once more. “B-but you can…take my place.”

Cadence stiffened. When she’d first started the case, she’d believed that the killer abducted a new victim when he killed his previous prey. But to discover that the victims were actually helping him…
I didn’t expect that
.

She should have seen it. Dammit. She should have seen it.

“Now, walk. Please.”

“I can’t see in front of me. I need a light.”

“The l-light’s gone. You learn that.”

She didn’t plan to learn anything.

But Cadence put one foot in front of the other. She walked in the darkness. The gun was still behind her. It pushed into her back every few moments. She could try to take the weapon away from the woman, but in the struggle, Cadence couldn’t be sure the gun wouldn’t go off.

The plan was to save the victims. Not kill them.

She walked. One foot. The other. Her eyes couldn’t adjust to the perfect darkness. There was no seeing. Just an endless night.

Her arm throbbed. Her head ached.

She walked.

The tires were spinning in the mud.

“Fuck, fuck,
fuck
!” Kyle snarled as his hands slammed into the steering wheel. He jerked the gearshift, pushing the vehicle into reverse.

The SUV heaved back.

The lights shone ahead of them. The road had been washed away. If he tried to advance, the vehicle would just get trapped again.

“There’s got to be another way to her,” he said, fury and fear knifing through him. They were losing too much time.

Time that Cadence didn’t have.

Dani was pulling up aerial maps on her tablet. “We need to go back, about two miles. Looks like there’s another turn we can take back there. As long as”—she exhaled slowly, the sound ragged—“as long as the road is still intact.”

Not a road. His gaze narrowed on her tablet screen. Another damn dirt trail. “If it’s not?”

She glanced up at him, the screen’s light shining on her worried face. “Then we go back to the highway. We circle around. It will take maybe forty-five minutes that way.”

Going by the time Cadence had made the call to the station, she already had at least a forty-five-minute head start on them.

He yanked out his phone. Called Heather. “Reverse the team,” he ordered. “We’re hitting the trail two miles back.”

They would get to Cadence, even if he had to get a fucking helicopter out there to take him in to her.

“How long have you been with him?” Cadence asked. She couldn’t stand the silence. The dark.

“Always,” was the soft answer behind her.

“That’s not true.
How long?
”

Stockholm syndrome. The words beat through Cadence’s head. This woman had been held by her captor for so long.

“I don’t remember anything…before him.” Stilted.

“You’re lying.” Her words weren’t angry, because this woman
was
a victim. Cadence kept her voice calm and steady. “You remember.”

A light was up ahead. A faint, flickering light.

Her breath heaved from her lungs. “Is that him?”

“Don’t scream,” was the whisper from behind her. Shaking. “He doesn’t like it when you scream.”

I didn’t scream
. Lily’s words.

Cadence swallowed and kept walking toward that light. A candle? “Do you know Maria?”

Silence.

“She was taken fifteen years ago. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. She has a brother who’s been looking for her, all that time.”

Still nothing. Just the faint scrape of the woman’s shoes on the stone floor. The press of the gun into Cadence’s back.

The light flickered again. She could see a curving entrance near the light.

“There have been others who were taken,” Cadence said, determined to keep talking. Determined to make a connection with this woman. “Did you know Bridgette, Fiona, Judith—”

A choked sob came from the woman.

You knew her
.

“We found Judith’s body,” Cadence said. “I don’t want you to wind up like her. Let me
help
you.”

“Can’t…” The barest of whispers. “He’s here.”

She realized the scrapes she’d heard in the tunnel hadn’t come from the woman’s shoes.

They were farther back. Closing in on them.

They were coming from
him
.

Cadence started to turn around, but the woman shoved her in the back, sending Cadence stumbling toward the light.

The light was a candle, barely an inch high. The flame was sputtering because it was about to go out, and when it did, she’d be in the darkness again.

“Give me your hands,” the woman said.

Cadence lifted her hands. The watch was a reassuring weight.
He’s coming
.

Metal clicked around her wrists. Handcuffs.

“Don’t scream,” was the whisper once more.

Then the woman was backing away.

A creak of sound reached Cadence’s ears. Like a door opening. Or closing.

The flame sputtered out. Darkness.

“Hello?” Cadence called. The drumming of her heart was so loud. She lifted her hands, testing those cuffs. The woman had put them on too tightly. They bit into her wrists.

A familiar scraping sound reached her ears.

A sound that was very, very close.

He’s here
.

Just as she had that thought, a bright light hit her right in the face, temporarily blinding her.

“Hello, Agent Hollow.”

She didn’t recognize his voice. It was low, rumbling. Almost mocking.

She squinted against the light. She wanted to
see
him, but the light was on top of his head. A headlamp. Just like the caving light she’d used before. No, not just a headlamp. She could just make out the bulk of the helmet on his head. Because of the helmet,
no light actually fell on him. He was a shadow. Cadence saw the rough outline of his body, but little else.

About six foot three
.

Wide shoulders
.

“You know, of course, Agent Hollow, that you won’t get out of this place alive.”