Twice

His giggling stopped abruptly. “When he’s done with you, you’re not even going to want to live.”

The words sent an army of chills from her neck into her fingertips. She wanted to pull out her gun and make the dwarf wet his pants and weep for mercy. But if she killed him, she’d never find Jeffrey. If she never found Jeffrey, then the little bastard would be right after all.

“When this is over, I’m going to have mercy on you, Shorty.”

“Isn’t that generous?” came another voice out of the darkness. “You’re a better person than I am, Lydia Strong.”

Suddenly there was light and the darkness seemed to skitter away in the beam of the powerful flashlight. In the momentary blindness that followed, she heard Jed McIntyre laugh.

She struggled against arms that wrapped around her from behind, arms as cold and strong as lengths of chain. One impossibly powerful arm held her immobile across the chest and another wrapped tightly around her throat. She tried to twist away from him, feeling weak against his superior weight and the intensity of his grip on her. When she stomped down hard down on his foot, his grip loosened for just a moment and she managed to free an arm. Her hand flew to the shoulder holster but stopped dead when she felt the steel of a blade against her neck. It was so sharp that just the lightest touch nicked her skin and she felt a warm vein of blood trickle down her neck. Her breathing came harsh and ragged.

“This would be a good time to hand over your weapons, Lydia,” Jed McIntyre said reasonably. “I can feel one here at your back.”

Releasing her arms but keeping the knife pressed to her throat, he pulled the Glock from her waistband and handed it to the dwarf. “I dislike guns,” he said. “They’re so sloppy.”

The dwarf pointed it at her, his grin superior and malicious. She wondered if he realized she had the safety on. It was a piece of information she’d hold on to for the time being. Her mind was oddly clear in spite of the horror and unreality of the situation. Things seemed to be happening very slowly.

Jed McIntyre removed the Smith and Wesson from the holster and pushed her away from him; she hit a concrete wall hard. She raised a hand to her neck and felt the wet stickiness of her own blood. It looked black on her fingers.

Jed McIntyre picked up the flashlight that lay on the ground and shone it under his face. He looked ghoulish in the harsh white light, creating black circles under his eyes, his teeth yellow and shining. His red hair was a chaos of wild curls.

“You can’t imagine how long I’ve been waiting for this moment, Lydia. Doesn’t it feel like destiny?”

With that he pointed the revolver at the dwarf, whose malicious smile melted into uncertainty. He let go a little laugh, his eyes darting from Jed to Lydia and back to Jed. “What are you doing?” he asked, voice cracking. “Come on, Jed. It’s not funny.”

“I wouldn’t shoot that in here if I were you,” said Lydia, looking around at the concrete tunnel they were in. At such close range the bullet would pass through the dwarf and ricochet all over the tunnel.

“Sorry, Horatio. It’s been great.”

Horatio swung the gun he had pointed at Lydia toward Jed. It was too big for his hands, but he managed to reach the trigger. But the gun wouldn’t fire. Those pesky safeties.

McIntyre fired the revolver and Lydia dropped to the ground, curled herself in a ball, and covered her head with her arms. The echoing bang must have been heard for miles.

Horatio issued a girlish scream that ended abruptly in a horrible gurgle. She heard him fall to the floor, heard him rasping and convulsing there on the ground for thirty seconds, maybe more. She heard the sharp scream of the bullet as it bounced off the walls, twice, maybe three times before losing momentum, all the while waiting to be struck by it. She leaned against the wall, feeling pity and revulsion, terror and rage come in flashes, competing with one another in intensity. Then there was silence.

“I hope I didn’t act in haste,” said McIntyre, musing.

Horatio’s leg twitched horribly for a few seconds more as blood drained from a throat wound. Lydia felt pity for him as she got to her feet to stand face to face with Jed McIntyre.

chapter thirty-three

“Ford?”

“Rose.”

“How are you?”

“Can’t complain.” His throat felt as dry and his hands as shaky as a boy talking to his crush. An awkward silence fell between them. They were strangers to each other now. Strangers who shared a twenty- five-year past.

“Where are you?” he asked finally.

“With Katie in Houston.”

“How is she?”

“She’s doing well.”

Again silence. He wasn’t sure what she wanted, why she called. Was it guilt?

“I miss you, Ford.”

He closed his eyes against the swell of emotions that rose in his chest. If he released all that he was feeling, he was sure that the wires on the phone would burst into flames. “I miss you, too,” he said in a voice that croaked, one he barely recognized.

“Can we talk?”

“Aren’t we talking?”

“In person.”

“Come home,” he said, and he tried not to sound like he was begging.

“Ford…”

“Just come home, Rose. We’ll talk all you want.”

“Things have to change.”

“Okay whatever you want,” he said, and he meant it.

“No. It has to be what we want, Ford. If we don’t want the same things, then there’s no point in our being together anymore. Do you understand that?”

He paused, listening, really listening to her, maybe for the first time. He did know what she meant and he wondered if maybe it was hopeless after all.

“I can only be what I am, Rose,” he admitted, expecting her to hang up.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Her voice was soft, loving, sounding like she had when they were young.

“We’ll talk, then. Figure it out.”

“Yes. I’ll come home in a few days. Friday.”

“Okay.”

“Ford?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

He cried then; he didn’t care that she heard him sobbing like a baby. “I love you, Rose. So much,” he managed to croak before he hung up the phone.

He played the conversation over in his mind as he drove the Taurus up to Haunted. He’d stopped home before heading upstate, to shower and change, more to keep himself awake than out of concern for hygiene, and had been there to take the call from Rose. Part of him was starting to believe he dreamt it, that she wasn’t really coming back, that he was going to be forced to live out the rest of his life alone with only his unsolved cases to fill the empty hours and years. Like a schoolgirl, he analyzed her words. Was she coming back to stay? If he didn’t say the right things, would she leave again? Friday seemed impossibly far away. He pushed the conversation from his mind. He had to focus now. Two children were missing, two people were dead, three if you counted Tad.

He raced up the road that wound toward the outskirts of the town. Tall trees rose on either side of him and