Should Be Dead (The Valkyrie Smith Mystery Series Book 1) (12 page)

She didn’t feel lucky. She felt broken, as if she’d never be the same again. As if none of this could be real, and she still couldn’t quite grasp the fact that it was. She thought of Frank lying somewhere in the shadows of the barn floor where Loki had dragged his body. At least he wasn’t in pain, she told herself. At least Frank’s death had been quick. Probably painless.

Her chest tightened, and she struggled unsuccessfully to hold back the tears. At least Frank hadn’t been there to see Loki raping her. If Frank had witnessed that, it would have destroyed him. It would have been worse than death.

Death,
Maddie had been telling herself,
is just a stepping-stone to the next life. A better life.

She wanted to believe that. She
needed
to believe it, because if she didn’t, she would lose her mind.

One of the killers shifted in the other room, and Maddie flinched. She was bound to a chair in the kitchen, completely nude, blood dripping down the front of her body. Zip ties secured her ankles to the chair legs, and her wrists behind the chair back. Loki and Odin had gagged her with a kitchen towel tied around her face. At the time, Maddie had believed that they were tying her up for one last torture session before finally killing her. Instead, the two maniacs had tied her up and then made some sandwiches and went into the living room to watch TV, leaving her there to suffer alone in silence.

That was where they had been all night, and into the morning. Every time they moved, her blood froze. Every noise they made, she was sure they were coming back to finish her off. Strangely, the two seemed to have lost interest. Maddie couldn’t be sure why that was. Perhaps it was because she’d refused to scream.

Loki had tried over and over to make her scream, but Maddie wouldn’t do it. It was the one thing she had left. They could strip her of her dignity, desecrate her body, even crush her spirit, but no matter what they did to her, Maddie refused to scream. That was what they seemed to want. By holding it back, she held power over them. That power was the one thing she had left in the entire world.

The power not to scream
, she thought miserably, laughing quietly to herself. Tears streamed down her cheeks, mingling with the dried blood on her chin. Maddie tugged at the zip ties on her wrists. She winced as the sharp plastic burned into her wounds; wounds that
she
had created over hours of trying to stretch and twist the plastic, all to no avail. Maddie thought she might have made some headway, but it was impossible to be sure. She was nowhere near escape, that was for certain. Even if she did eventually managed to wriggle out of the bonds, she’d still have to undo her feet and then somehow get out of the house without being caught. And then what? She was naked and covered in blood. She had minor injuries, or at least she hoped that was all they were. What would she do? Run screaming naked into the fog, barefoot across the dry, barren ground?

Yes, that was
exactly
what she would do. Better to die out there of hypothermia than in her own kitchen at the hands of those monsters. Better to have a thousand thorns driven into the soles of her feet than whatever Loki and Odin had planned.

Maddie almost believed escape might be possible. If she somehow managed to slip away, to make a run for the tree line at the top of the hill, she could hide away in the woods and they’d never find her. She might even make it to the campground on the north slope of the mountain. Maybe she’d even find someone there who could help her. Someone with a phone.

Maddie knew those woods like the back of her hand. She used to go camping up there with Frank, where the property butted up to the Sequoia Coast State Park. She had wonderful memories of watching the sun set over the ocean, roasting marshmallows, making love to Frank under the redwoods.

The world is broken,
she thought. Without Frank, nothing would ever be the same again. Not the house, not the ocean… everything had changed.

An awful, guttural snarl came rumbling out of the living room and Maddie gasped. She turned, craning her neck, trying to get a glimpse through the half-open door. The sound came again and she realized what it was: Odin was snoring. That god-awful noise was the sound of Frank’s killer sleeping on her dead husband’s La-Z-Boy.

Something in the corner of Maddie’s eye caught her attention. Something shiny, resting at the edge of the table. She turned, craning her neck in the opposite direction. She could just barely make out the shape of tiny vines engraved onto the silver handle of her good silver butter knife.

It’s not sharp,
she thought. Even if she could somehow worm her way around the edge of the table and get her hands high enough to reach that knife, she doubted it would cut through her bonds. Then again, it didn’t necessarily
need to
. With enough time, she was sure she could scrape through the plastic enough to weaken it.

But how? How could she move so far without attracting their attention? She almost dismissed the idea outright. Then again, she had been sitting in that chair for
hours
without either one of them so much as sticking his head through the doorway. Maybe she still had time…

Maddie considered the possibilities. With her feet bound the way they were, she couldn’t walk, but with enough strength, she might be able to move the chair sideways. She would have to alternate between the front and back legs, or side-to-side if necessary. In this manner, she might be able to move the few feet necessary to bring the knife within reach. Above all, she must maintain absolute silence.

Maddie decided to try it. She had nothing to lose. If she woke them, they would come in and kill her. If she didn’t wake them, the psychos would eventually get around to killing her anyway. If Maddie had any hope of surviving to see her grandchildren again, this was it. She rocked forward slightly in the chair, testing her balance. She felt her weight pull the rear legs upward, tipping towards the front. She quickly settled back in the chair for fear of lifting the legs too high and making a noise.

Maddie waited, eyes rolling nervously, chest heaving as she struggled to breathe through her broken nose. She waited, but nothing happened. Odin snored on. No one moved. This imbued Maddie with the courage to try again. She exhaled and bent forward, wincing as the back of the chair pulled her arms wide. The zip ties cut into her wrists. Slowly, cautiously, she allowed her weight to pull the chair forward. The sound of Odin’s snoring came drifting in through the doorway, and from this new vantage, she could see the soles of his socks resting on the recliner’s footrest. Loki was nowhere to be seen.

Maddie felt the legs rise as the balance of her weight shifted precariously forward onto the balls of her feet. She twisted, swinging the back of the chair an inch, and then moved her weight back ever so gently. The back legs settled onto the tiles and Maddie straightened up, panting. She could already feel beads of perspiration forming on her chest and forehead.

Maddie tensed up and waited, straining to hear every sound coming out of the living room. When a minute passed and nothing had happened, she tried again. This time Maddie rocked backwards, lifting the front of the chair with her toes, pushing herself sideways another inch before letting it settle gently to the floor. Another success!

Her heart pounded like a drum, her blood-streaked breasts rising and falling with her rapid breathing. Maddie leaned to the side, trying to get a view of her captors through the doorway. Odin’s socks hadn’t moved. She still couldn’t see Loki, but she presumed he was on the sofa next to the fireplace.

With the confidence of her previous successes, Maddie went to work faster. She shifted her weight forward, then back again, until she had moved at least a foot towards the corner of the table. By this time, beads of sweat were rolling down her forehead, stinging her eyes, burning the open wounds on her face. She couldn’t see it, but the perspiration on her chest had mixed with the drying blood, and was now running down her torso and thighs in shiny pink rivulets.

Maddie leaned forward again, working hard to bring the rear of the chair around to the corner of the table. This part was going to prove most difficult. Maddie had no choice, but to move the entire chair
around
the corner. She would never reach the knife any other way. But as she swung the chair around, something went wrong.

Maddie’s balance shifted unexpectedly in the chair, and she slipped. The sweat had made her body slippery, allowing her thighs to glide along the seat of the chair in a way they couldn’t before. This slight change caused Maddie to lose her balance, and she fell backwards.

The chair legs thumped to the floor and the back of the chair smacked the edge of the table. The entire table made a groaning sound as it skidded across the tiles. Maddie moaned, and tears filled her eyes.

That’s it,
she thought.
Now they’ll come kill me.

A dark shape appeared in the doorway. She raised her eyes to lock gazes with Loki. He stared at her, blinking, still half-asleep. Maddie stared back, uncertain, anticipating the worst. She closed her eyes and tried not to think about what was about to happen. She tried to rein in her terror through meditation.

Go somewhere else,
she thought.
You know how this works. Find a place where he can’t go; a place where you can’t feel anything…

She winced as Loki stepped around her to the kitchen counter. She heard shuffling noises, the tiny
clinking
sounds
of metal keys, the unmistakable
whooshing
sound of a blade being drawn from the chopping block. Loki moved, and Maddie felt the cold steel tip of a knife pressed up against her cheek. She opened her eyes, blinking as the drops of sweat blurred her vision. Loki narrowed his eyebrows, and put a finger to his lips.

He made a quiet
shushing
noise and then stepped back, displaying her boning knife in his right hand. In the other hand, he held a set of keys. The Mercedes keys. Loki stepped around her and very quietly opened the back door. He stepped out onto the patio and pulled the door shut behind him.

Moments later, the car started in the driveway. Maddie fought the urge to vomit as the sound of the engine faded into the distance. Then, all at once, silence crashed down… except for the deep rumble of Odin’s snoring.

Chapter 16

“Riley, is there something different about you?” Jackie said the moment she entered the office of the Herald.

Riley was standing at the copy machine by the north wall, and he tensed up the moment he heard her voice. He hadn’t been looking forward to talking to Jackie. He’d been planning to avoid her by leaving the office early, before Jackie returned from her Wednesday college classes.

“We need to talk,” she said, approaching him.

Riley frowned. He had a bad feeling about what she was about to say. The last time they had spoken over the phone, Jackie had claimed to have discovered some big “secret” about Valkyrie. Riley suspected he knew what that was. After all, he had seen her numerous IDs and badges with his own eyes. Yet even though he knew that something about Val wasn’t on the up and up, some part of him didn’t want to know what that was. He liked her. Maybe even loved her. He wasn’t sure what the feeling was, but whatever it was, it made him want to protect her.

“Let’s talk in my office,” he said, and headed in that direction.

“I don’t believe I have ever seen you wearing your shirt un-tucked,” Jackie said as she followed him in.

Riley settled into his chair and shot her an exasperated glare. “You said on the phone that you wanted to show me something?”

“Open your email. I sent you a link.”

Riley did. The link took him to a newspaper site, the
Idaho Falls Daily.
“Okay, what should I be looking for?”

“Scroll down to the second article.”

Riley did, and saw the title:
Local Woman Escapes Killer’s Rampage: Family Dead.
He leaned closer as he scanned the article, and began reading aloud:

“Idaho Falls native Valkyrie Smith was found this morning at the bottom of a dried-up well on her family farm. According to police reports, she suffered from a devastating fall that broke her back. Ironically, it may have been the fall that saved her life. According to police, Valkyrie escaped a harrowing ordeal after being tortured and repeatedly raped over a period of several days. Tragically, Valkyrie’s husband Tom and her son Kyle did not survive the attack...”

Riley fell silent, but continued to stare at the article. He clicked on the picture of Val being hauled into an ambulance, and clearly recognized her face. He leaned back in his chair and locked gazes with Jackie.

“How did you find this?”

“I’m a reporter. That’s my job. Do you see something familiar about that crime?”

“It’s just like what happened at the Brooks place last weekend.”

“Uh-huh. Do you know what this means, Riley?”

“I don’t know… I suppose you have a theory?”

“At the end of the article, they said Valkyrie Smith was an elementary school teacher.
Not
a federal agent.”

“And?”

“That was five years ago. Valkyrie Smith is no fed. She has been lying to you Riley, even if you are too dense to believe it.”

Riley remembered the IDs in Val’s wallet and everything clicked neatly into place. So neat that it was a little scary. This wasn’t the kind of story Riley was used to investigating. He was used to farm reports, stolen vineyard equipment, even the occasional gang shooting, but a real life conspiracy? A female vigilante working alone to track down a serial killer? It seemed like the plot of a movie, not the… not the woman he’d just lost his virginity to.

“What are you saying? That she’s some sort of vigilante, pretending to be a fed so she can find the guy that did this to her? Do you realize how ludicrous that sounds?”

Even to Riley, his voice sounded a little too defensive. Maybe a little too shaken.