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Prologue
Kill me. One blood-splattered cowboy boot crunched on the chipped cement floor inches away from his cheek. A sick chuckle followed by a nerve-shattering kick to broken ribs brought back the tremors. A lightning bolt of white-hot agony shot down his spine. In a desperate attempt to pull precious air through swollen lips, he spat blood and gasped precious air. Lungs burning with effort, he writhed like a worm in the dirt waiting for the death blow. His vision blurred and pain pierced his eyes. He had lost all sense of direction, and his tormentor’s peals of satanic laughter played tricks with his confused mind. Night had drifted into another day of endless torture. He tried to crawl away and puffed out a spray of red, stirring the straw on the dusty floor.
How long had it been since he walked into the stables? One day? Five days? Time had become the periods between attacks. He had suffered unimaginable torture from a man well skilled at inflicting misery, but he’d somehow survived. At first, he tried to reason with his captor and gave him the information he demanded, but he had fallen into a lunatic’s sadistic fantasy. He had had no time to retaliate, no time to bargain for his life. The first hammer blow knocked him senseless and he came out of oblivion into a world of pain, tied hand and foot at the mercy of a monster.
He hovered between reality and delusion. The mind is a wonderful organ, and his tried to compensate by taking him on trips to the beach with his family. At times, he floated into another dimension on marshmallow clouds but reality came crashing back with each round of torment. He soon discovered crying or begging for mercy made the sessions last longer. Biting back moans and pretending to be unconscious gave the wielder of pain no satisfaction.
Under him, the cold floor acted as a balm to his injuries, numbing the agony, and when darkness came, he could crawl beneath a pile of stinking straw. The fermenting horse dung kept him warm, kept him alive. He had spent the first hours in captivity gnawing at the ropes around his wrists, using his teeth to loosen the knot, but one swing of the lunatic’s hammer put paid to any hope of escape. A shadow passed over him. A boot pressed down on his spine, the heel twisting to part the vertebrae in bone-jarring agony. Sensation left his legs. He has paralyzed me. Determined not to give him the satisfaction of crying out, he remained silent. One more night naked on the freezing ground would finish him, and he would welcome the release.
A car engine hummed in the distance and Cowboy Boots bent over him, grabbed his legs, and dragged him into a stall. Straw tumbled over him, coating his eyelashes with dust. Through the golden strands, he peered out the open door and his heart pounded in anticipation. A police cruiser pulled up in the driveway and two uniformed officers climbed out. A female cop handed his captor a piece of paper. He edged forward on his elbows, dragging his useless legs behind him. Sucking in a deep breath, he screamed though his shredded lips but only a long whine escaped his throat. The woman glanced in his direction and he clawed at the ground, edging inch by inch from the stall. He had to get her attention, and fighting back waves of nausea, he tried again. “Aaaaarh.”
The police officer indicated toward the barn with her chin then moved in his direction, but Cowboy Boots blocked her way and shook his head. A grin spread across his face with the cunning of a gargoyle, evil personified. The cop spoke again but her muffled words dissipated in the wind and his tormentor’s attention moved back to the paper in his hand. Somehow, he had convinced her all was well. I have a chance to escape. He dug for his last ounce of strength and bucked to move forward one painful inch at a time.
I must crawl into the open. Spitting blood, he pushed sound through his shattered mouth. Hear me. Please hear me. “Aaaaarh.”
The woman flicked a look his way, squeezed Cowboy Boots’ arm in a comforting gesture then followed the other officer back to the car. Despair enveloped him, and all hope lost, he allowed the tears stinging his eyes to run down his cheeks. Footsteps came tapping on the cement floor like the ringing of a death knell. His cries for help had enraged the maniac.
“How dare you try to alert the cops? I own you.” Cowboy Boots spat a hot, slimy globule on his cheek. “It’s your fault the bitch scanned my yard. You are so gonna pay.”
Blows rained down on him, searing pain exploded in his head, and his vision blinked. A strange fog surrounded him and he embraced the peace of darkness.
One
“It’s official. I’m crazy, nuts, certifiable.” David Kane peered through the frost-covered windshield into the inky darkness closing around his SUV. “Only a madman drives overnight in a blizzard.” Alone in the car, his voice seemed louder than usual.
The headlights illuminated a strip of blacktop like a glossy, ice-covered snake winding through snow-covered fields. An uncomplicated life in a small, sleepy town in Montana had looked good during his ten-month stint in the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, but after four hours of driving deeper into oblivion, he was beginning to have his doubts. “Talking to yourself is the first sign.”
Yawning, he opened a window to clear his head. A blast of freezing wind slapped his face, jerking his concentration to full alert. “That’s better.” He pulled down his black woolen cap to cover his ears then tapped the GPS screen. “Are you awake?”
The robotic female voice keeping him company had remained silent since her last set of directions. In the distance, he caught the intermittent glow of taillights and accelerated. Following a vehicle through the treacherous, unfamiliar roads would make life easier, and if it dropped out of sight, he doubted another would come by any time soon. Isolated and far from civilization, only idiots like him visited the backwoods town of Black Rock Falls during a blizzard.
He rounded a long curve and gained on the bobbing red lights. Snow pile
d on the wipers and left a frozen trail on the windshield, distorting the view. He slowed to keep pace, remaining at a distance, not wanting to tailgate or disturb the driver, but the fact someone else had braved the weather gave him comfort. When a road loomed up on the right with a stop sign peppered with bullet holes and sagging at a jaunty angle, he sighed with relief. The SUV’s headlights picked out a white barn, fences, and a driveway leading to darkness. At last, signs of life.
The roar of an engine cut through the silence and light hit the rear-view mirror. Twin halogen beams cut into his corneas, blinding him. The vehicle shot past at high speed, showering his black SUV with ice and gravel. He blinked away red spots in time to make out a mud-covered license plate on a dark pickup carrying a large black barrel secured by ropes. Idiot! The speeding maniac bore down on the car in front and both disappeared around a tight bend. A wave of apprehension hit him. A loud bang and grinding shattered the still night and he slowed his pace. Taking the sweeping turn with caution, he gaped in dismay at the pieces of twisted metal littering the bank of fresh snow.
Vivid memories of life-changing seconds slammed into his mind. The image of his wife’s lifeless eyes staring into nothingness. The blood on her forehead. The anger knowing the bad guys had won. He shook his thoughts back into the now and scanned the road for wreckage. The ruts in the snow indicated one vehicle had left the road. He inched the car forward and stared into the distance.
Two red taillights disappeared into the darkness.
Jerk. The pickup had appeared out of nowhere as if the driver had lain in wait behind the barn then rammed the other car with no regard to human life. What a great start to his new job. He would arrive in Black Rock Falls as the sole witness to attempted murder and leaving the scene of an accident. This is all I need. Using the SUV’s headlights to scan the area, he crawled forward, searching the gray packed snow on the edge of the road for the other vehicle. A plume of smoke shimmered in a nearby field and a deep groove in the soil showed the car’s trajectory. He turned his car to flood the area with light. Leaving the engine running, he grabbed a flashlight from the glove compartment and slid from the seat.
Sleet stung his cheeks and an icy chill cut through his clothes. He zipped his thick winter hoodie and shivered. His gut clenching with apprehension of finding death in the crushed metal, he ran, boots crunching on ice, toward a police cruiser with the “Black Rock Falls County Sheriff’s Department” logo on the door. The car revolved on its roof, wheels spinning and cloaked in a haze of mist. As it came to a stop, he jumped the drainage gully along the roadside, dropped the flashlight then slid on his knees toward the driver’s side. A cloud of fumes billowed around him and gas pooled in the snow. One spark and the fuel would ignite. Placing one boot on the side panel, he grabbed the handle and gently levered open the door. He reached for the flashlight and aimed the beam on the face of a woman in uniform suspended upside down by the seat belt, her face flush with the airbag. She glared at him, dark eyes flashing. She appeared alert and, from her expression, pissed to the max. She’s alive.
As he moved the flashlight over her, the officer squinted then lifted the muzzle of a Glock 22 and aimed it at his face.
