Vicious

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

As she pulled onto Birch Way, Susan couldn’t help hoping she’d find Allen’s black BMW parked at the end of the driveway. She took one curve after another on the long, winding tree-lined drive. She couldn’t see the house yet.

“Where’s Allen gone?” Mattie asked, kicking at the back of the passenger seat.

“That’s what your dear old mother would like to know,” Susan muttered, eyes on the road.

She was thinking about her visit with Jordan Prewitt and his friend. At least she knew Allen had headed for town after leaving Rosie’s. Maybe he’d gone to meet someone after all. She still couldn’t dismiss the notion that he’d had some secret agenda for this trip.

Jordan and his friend had acted a bit strange. Why was he asking all those questions about Allen? And his pal had seemed so nervous and fidgety. Then again, they were teenagers. Acting weird came with the territory. Besides, next to Sheriff Fischer—pilfering her panties—they’d come off as downright normal and nice.

Taking the last turn in the road, Susan saw the house ahead and the empty driveway. She figured there was always the chance Allen had come and gone. Maybe he’d left a note—alongside the one she’d written to him.

Susan had hoped not to come back to an empty house. But now as she took Mattie by the hand and headed for the front door, Susan prayed the place was indeed empty. She was terrified of running into that hunter again. She didn’t care what the sheriff had said; that man had seemed far more interested in the house than he’d been in the woodlands surrounding it. Stepping inside, she didn’t let go of Mattie’s hand until she’d circled through the entire first floor. Then she parked him in the sunroom with his bin of toys so she could keep an eye on him.

Checking the dining room table, she found her note just where she’d left it. There was nothing from Allen. A weird thought suddenly occurred to her. What if Allen’s hidden reason for this trip had been to meet up with another woman? What if he was with this woman right now?

Well, that would certainly let me off the hook, Susan thought, plopping down on a dining room chair. Then she immediately felt horrible for letting that notion creep into her head. Allen was so good to her and Mattie. And everybody liked him. Her parents were crazy for him.

Yet she remembered something that had happened on the last day of their visit down in Florida a few weeks back—before the engagement. While she’d been packing for the return flight, her mother had come into the guest room. “That Allen is a real charmer,” she’d said with a smile and a hushed voice. “I think your father has just found a new best friend, and all the neighbors just adore him, dear. But I want you to know…” The smile had disappeared from her mother’s still-pretty, lined face. “You shouldn’t feel any pressure to make a commitment. Take your time, Suzy. It won’t be the end of the world if he’s not the one.”

Susan had been rushing around to get packed and make their plane that afternoon. She hadn’t had time to let her mother’s words sink in. Besides, her mom had loved Walt so much; any man after him would fall short in comparison. So it had been easy to shrug off what her mother had said about Allen that last day in Vero Beach.

But maybe her mother had known then what Susan was just recently figuring out.

Perhaps that was why she felt so tempted to pack up their things right now, leave Allen another note, and drive home. But she felt duty-bound to stay—just as she’d felt duty-bound to accept his proposal of marriage.

Where the hell was he anyway?

Frowning, Susan stared out the sunroom’s sliding glass door at The Seaworthy, tied to the dock. She wondered—once again—why he’d had to have that particular boat. And why had he allotted a specific time for sailing it this afternoon?

Susan opened up the leather-bound folder on the dining room table and glanced at the printout from Bayside Rentals. She folded it up and slipped it into her purse alongside the flare gun. Glancing at her wristwatch, she scratched out the time at the bottom of her note to Allen from forty minutes ago, and then wrote in: 3:05.

“Sweetie?” she called to Mattie. “Better take a potty break. We’re going right out again.”

In the corner of the trench was a pile of broken plastic, metal, duct tape, and a battery. Moira had found a rock and smashed the SPY-TELL 300 Motion Sensor to pieces.

Until she’d destroyed the damn Weatherproof-Waterproof thing, its blinking red light had seemed like part of a time bomb. Each second that ticked away had her closer to meeting the creep who had set this trap.

Good luck picking up a signal now, asshole, Moira thought, with another glance at the mess of plastic and metal in the corner. One shard of plastic was particularly sharp, and she held on to it—just in case he showed up.

She’d been in this stinking pit for over two hours now. In the opposite corner from the broken sensor device, she’d finally succumbed to the call of nature and peed. So, basically, she was trapped in her own toilet now. Swell.

Weren’t Leo and Jordan at all concerned? She’d thought by now she’d hear them calling for her. Was it possible that she’d been so awful to Leo that he didn’t give a damn about her right now? Would he start to worry about her by sunset?

Moira didn’t think she could stand it much longer. She was so cold, hungry, and scared.

She’d had only two more drive-bys, and had screamed and screamed—to no avail. She’d made another attempt to scale the wall, but hadn’t even gotten a foot off the ground. There wasn’t anything to hold on to—just loose dirt and mud. She felt so frustrated, only five feet away from freedom. It might as well have been fifty feet.

“SOMEBODY?” she yelled out—for the umpteenth time. She didn’t need any car or forest noise to trigger her call for help, just frustration and panic. Somehow, screaming for help seemed more productive than sitting there crying. “SOMEBODY?” she repeated—a bit frail this time.

Then she heard something in the distance—a bass beat. Music again, someone in a car with their window rolled down.

“HELP ME! HELP!” she screamed, her head tilted back. She dropped the shard of plastic, then gazed up at the light above. “PLEASE, HELP ME, SOMEBODY!”

The music was louder and clearer now: “Rock the boat…. Don’t rock the boat, baby…. Rock the boat…. Don’t tip the boat over….” A man was singing along with it. She could hear the car’s motor purring, too.

“OH, GOD, HELP ME!” she screeched. “HELP ME!”

The music suddenly shut off.

“Oh, sweet Jesus, he heard me,” Moira whispered. “Thank you, God.” Her throat hurt from screaming, but she let out several more shrieks for help. She stopped for a moment and listened. She heard what sounded like a car door shutting.

“HELP ME! HELP!” She leaned against the dirt wall. “Help me, please!” she croaked. Her voice was giving out. Her throat felt raw, and her mouth was so dry.

“Somebody out there?” she heard the man call in the distance.

“YES!” she yelled. “I NEED HELP! I’VE FALLEN IN THIS HOLE. I’M TRAPPED DOWN HERE!”

“I hear you!” the man replied, his voice a little closer now. “Keep talking! I’m trying to find you….”

Moira rubbed her neck. It hurt to swallow. “I’M HERE!” she managed to yell. “I SCREWED UP MY ANKLE WHEN I FELL! I’M STUCK IN THIS STUPID HOLE!” She pulled her sweater over her head, and then tried to toss it up and out of the pit. It missed the edge and fell back in the trench. Moira caught it. She tried again, and it sailed over the top and disappeared from her view. “LOOK FOR MY GREY SWEATER!” she yelled, wincing. She coughed to clear her sore throat. “CAN YOU SEE IT?”

“Keep talking!” the man called, but his voice sounded farther away now. “You’re fading out….”

Oh, no, she thought, slumping against the pit’s dirt wall. “I’M HERE!” she screamed. “LOOK FOR A GREY SWEATER ON THE GROUND! IT’S RIGHT BY THE HOLE….”

“Grey sweater?” he repeated. He seemed closer now.

“That’s right,” Moira said. She just couldn’t scream any more. “I’m here….” She glanced over at the smashed sensor device in the corner of the pit. She couldn’t eliminate the possibility that the man now about to