As if on cue, the footsteps got closer again. A girl’s voice—Liz’s voice—carried through a partially open bedroom window. “I’m not taking that. I’ve heard what happens to girls like me. They end up dead.”
“Little girls should talk less and listen more. Get those in you so I can get gone. Steel will be here any minute. So will the sheriff’s department.” It hurt Stella to hear Eric’s voice. She’d let that man take her to dinner. Touch her—even kiss her.
“Get off me!” Liz shouted.
A slap rang out, and Liz began to cry. Stella moved, but once again Jed held her back.
“He’ll get you, sure as shootin’, if you aren’t smart about it,” he said.
“Take them,” Eric snarled above them.
“No!”
Some kind of skirmish ensued, with Liz giving little cries. Thumps against the walls and floor were testament to how hard she was fighting.
“What if he’s giving her pills? What if he’s killing her right now?” she whispered. “I’ve got to get in there.”
“Goddamn it!” Eric yelled. “You bit me!”
More sounds of struggle. Jed’s expression grew grim. “It should be me going in there,” he said.
“You won’t get through that window,” Marion hissed. “She might; it’s pretty small.”
“I’ll get in,” Stella said.
“You better take this.” Jed drew his pistol from a shoulder holster Stella had no idea he’d been wearing under his cotton button-down shirt today. She probably should have guessed even before Steel had asked him about it. Jed being a retired deputy and all, he liked to be prepared.
“You remember how to fire one of these things?”
“Remember?” Stella practiced her shooting at the range at least once a week. She took the weapon and tucked it into the waistband of her jeans at the small of her back.
Marion led them carefully around the side of the trailer and pointed to a small open window.
“How am I supposed to get up there?”
They looked around. Jed pointed to a glint of light on metal, which turned out to be a short stepladder leaning up against the neighboring trailer’s joey shed. It took far too long for Stella to tiptoe over there, grab the ladder and come back, all the while afraid Eric would spy her through a window.
True dark had fallen, however, and from the sounds of things Eric was still trying to force something down Liz’s throat. There was a muffled grunt, and then Eric began to swear while footsteps ran toward the front of the trailer.
“Get back here,” Eric called out, his heavier steps echoing Liz’s path through the trailer. There was a shriek, a series of thuds and the unmistakeable thwack of a fist connecting with flesh.
Stella set up the ladder, climbed swiftly up it, careful not to slip on the wet surfaces, lifted a leg up and over the sill and slowly—slowly—edged inside. When her feet hit the ground, she cracked open the bathroom door just a bit, peered outside and bit back a curse.
In a flash she was out in the hall, the bathroom door closed again. She tiptoed down it and peeked into the kitchen, where Eric, swearing up a storm, was on his hands and knees picking up pills that had spilled all over the floor. Beyond him, in the living room, Liz lolled on the couch, hands duct taped together, the skin around her left eye bruised.
Had he succeeded in drugging her, or had he knocked her out? Stella wasn’t sure, and in the second she spent trying to discern from this distance whether Liz was still breathing, Eric turned. Spotted her. Lurched to his feet.
His fist connected with her cheekbone before she could react, and hot pain exploded in her temple as her head cracked against the hall wall. A moment later, coming to, she saw Eric, Liz in his arms, leaving by the front door.
“Stop! Eric!” Stella scrambled to her feet, swayed as the room spun about her and reached for the pistol. When she caught her balance, she raced to the door, saw Eric’s taillights and ran after his truck. “Call the sheriff. Call Steel! Tell them I need help!” she hollered over her shoulder at Marion. “Come on, Jed!”
They had to put a stop to this—now.
Chapter Ten
Steel wished like hell he had his own truck. Riding shotgun with Cab Johnson made him feel helpless. The thought of Eric holding Stella’s stepsister hostage had him sick with rage. The girl was barely fifteen. Eric was over forty.
Which made him twenty-seven when the first round of murders happened in Chance Creek, Steel thought. What had he been like back then? A young, cocky deputy drunk on his own power, dispensing his sick justice on women he’d deemed to have crossed the line? Had he gone after women in Livingston when he was even younger—fresh on the force?
What had made him change from targeting women on the outskirts of society to choosing victims from the heart of Chance Creek itself? Had he wanted a bigger challenge? And why hadn’t his victims aged along with him? Did the man think he could somehow stay young if he slept with—and killed—teenage girls?
Steel thought about the way he’d goaded Eric today, how he’d used his own youth, strength and energy to upstage the older man. If Liz was hurt, it would be partly his fault; he’d seen Eric’s temper before. Had known the man was close to his breaking point, at least when it came to Stella. Why had he pushed him so hard?
It had galled him to think there was even a chance Stella might end up with another man, he admitted to himself now. Despite his assurances to himself that he was completely committed to solving these crimes no matter what sacrifice it required, the truth was his own happiness had outweighed his promise to finish what Dale had started.
“You okay, Cooper?” Cab asked, shooting a quick glance his way.
“I’m fine.”
“Working undercover, huh? For how long?”
Steel wasn’t quite sure how to answer that,
