before. If he came at her now, she’d be able to fight. Except that her hands and feet were bound together, the ropes so tight her swollen fingers tingled when she wiggled them experimentally.
Being hog-tied, trapped in a trunk, wrapped in heavy, constrictive plastic, was a claustrophobic nightmare. She forced herself to breath evenly, knowing she had very little oxygen left. If he didn’t dump her off somewhere soon, she could very well suffocate before she got the chance to drown.
So much for her gallant rescue attempt.
Sidney knew that if she’d waited for Marc, Samantha would be in this truck instead of her, but that fact was cold comfort now that they both would die.
Her arms were tied at the wrist over her stomach. She inched her hands up toward her mouth, little by little, until she felt coarse rope bite into her lips. Like a starved animal, she gripped it with her teeth and tugged. She tore at the individual pieces of twine. She chewed until her mouth bled.
By the time the Taurus came to an abrupt stop, she’d succeeded in tightening the rope around her wrists to an agonizing degree.
When she felt herself being lifted out of the trunk, she was actually relieved. Until she landed with a harsh slap on the surface of water. Remembering how Kurtis had enjoyed the sight of the others struggling, she told herself to remain motionless as she slowly sank.
Let him think she was unconscious. Let him think she was already dead.
Cold water began to seep into the tarp, reviving her senses, renewing her chances of survival. With wet hands, she might be able to slip free of the binding. Tears of hope stung her eyes, and she heard a sound, peaceful and pleasant, like the melody of a bubbling brook, barely audible through the layers of tarp and water.
She turned her head slightly, trying to get her sticky ear away from the plastic, and a wet flood rushed in, soaking her clothing, her hair, her swollen hands. It tasted clean and smelled fresh. She was in a fountain!
Sidney forced herself to stay still even though water was pouring in at an alarming rate. Her body drifted lower then touched ground. Her heart leaped! Why had he not bothered to weigh her down?
The answer came with a solid block of concrete, hitting the middle of her stomach, robbing her of breath. Anchoring her deep.
Terror assailed her, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, trying to suck in oxygen. White lights fluttered before her eyes, and a low rumble, like an underground vibration, sounded in her ears.
He was driving away! The roar of the car’s engine faded into the distance.
Surging with adrenaline, she shoved at the concrete block on her stomach with bound hands. When it gave, she felt a frightening weightlessness. Desperate to get her head above water, she kicked her legs furiously, trying to put her feet under her so she could push off the bottom of the fountain.
It wasn’t as easy as she thought. She was so disoriented she couldn’t tell up from down. Panicking, she flailed this way and that, going nowhere. She struggled against the ropes, but she had no room to maneuver. She had no fight left. No air. No energy. No hope.
Sidney felt her body go slack as life left her.
By the time Marc pulled up to the San Luis Rey Mission, he was soaked in sweat, sick with fury, paralyzed by fear.
He jerked his car to a stop in front of the main fountain and jumped out, praying to God it was the right one. Blue was out in a flash, barking excitedly at the fountain’s edge, but the surface of the water was still as glass and dark as death.
Swallowing back his emotion and denying the obvious, Marc leaped over the edge, telling himself this was a rescue, not a recovery.
He waded around desperately, submerged to the middle of his chest, searching for any sign of her. When his shoe glanced off the edge of a cinder block, the same kind that had been in Agua Hedionda Lagoon with Candace Hegel, his stomach dropped. He dove underwater to find another limp, tarp-shrouded body.
He was too late.
Grabbing her around the waist, he brought her up in a wet heap, holding her to him very tightly, as if he could squeeze the life back into her. “No,” he said fiercely, refusing to accept the truth. Hauling them both over the edge, he laid her out on the soft dark grass, unaware that he was praying until he felt his cold lips moving.
With trembling hands, he found the tiny knife on his key chain and flipped it up, carefully cutting the tarp away from her face. It was Sidney. Her lips were dark and her eyes closed. She was beautiful, even in death.
On the ground, Sidney coughed and sputtered.
He stared down at her, astounded.
Water dribbled from the corner of her mouth.
He turned her on her side quickly, letting her purge the liquid from her stomach while he patted her back. When she was finished, he drew her into his arms and held her there, afraid to ever let her go again. He rocked her back and forth, not sure if he was comforting her or himself. Hot moisture coursed down his cheeks, and he realized he was crying, something he hadn’t done even when his father died. Or since.
“Samantha,” she whispered, her voice ravaged by the near-drowning.
He took her face in his hands. “Where?”
“With him. Kurtis.”
Marc searched the area with his eyes. A beige Ford Taurus was the only car in the parking lot. At the entrance to the graveyard, a heavy metal gate stood open.
“Don’t go,” she pleaded, even though she’d just asked him to.
“I have to.”
“Untie my hands.”
He did, using the small knife from his key chain, and kissed each swollen palm. “I love you,” he said with reverence.
“Please,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.
He strode to the car, grabbing his Glock off the passenger seat.
“Lacy will be here any minute,” he said. “Stay,” he added, meaning both her and Blue.
She put her arm around the dog’s neck and closed her eyes, too weak to argue.
Marc moved swiftly through the mission’s historical graveyard, thinking it was a poor place to rape, torture, or kill women. The grounds weren’t patrolled, but they were well-lit, and Marc didn’t doubt there were security cameras recording Kurtis Stalb’s every move.
The man was no longer concerned with getting caught. His intention, in coming here, was probably to go out in a big, symbolic hurrah, and Marc was more than eager to send him straight to hell where he belonged.
Toward the rear of the graveyard there was a stone wall with an altar upon which parishioners placed religious offerings. A dozen or more tall, glass-encased candles lit the scene. Samantha lay beneath them like a nonvirgin sacrifice. Her hands and ankles were bound, a handkerchief gag bit into her mouth and her clothes hung in tatters on her mostly nude body. She was the antithesis of purity.
Stalb loomed over her, taking a wicked-looking knife from a sheath at his waist.
Marc trained his Glock on the back of the man’s head, but Samantha didn’t give him the chance to pull the trigger. As Stalb cut the ropes securing her ankles, she lifted her arms and groped for one of the heavy candles resting on the ledge above her. When he positioned himself between her legs, she brought it down hard on top of his dark head.
Marc ran forward, vaulting over headstones, gun poised to shoot.
Stalb collapsed against Samantha, his body slack. She pushed him off her, but she wasn’t done with him yet. Wielding the glass-encased candle like a bludgeon, she bashed it into the back of his skull, again and again and again.
By the time Marc reached them, Kurtis Stalb was good and dead.
Samantha looked up at him, tears streaming down her pretty face, shards of glass and colored wax in her bloody hands.
