The Prey

Sadie’s heart beat frantically. She’d never heard Bridget so scared. Bridget, the classiest, calmest, most proper woman she knew.

She glanced at her surroundings. Bathroom. No way out. She was on the edge of panic as she shakingly put her phone back. Would the lie work? She didn’t see any other way. She couldn’t very well just walk out.

But he’d lied about Vern. They’d even talked about the judge over dinner, and Barker made it sound like they were close friends. That really burned Sadie. Some men-like her stepfather and this bastard Barker-thought they could manipulate women into doing what they wanted because women were stupid.

Sadie was anything but stupid.

Temper up, ready to tell Mr. Barker-if that was in fact his name-that the gig was up and she was leaving, she swung open the bathroom door and strode across the bedroom into the living room of the suite. “Mr. Barker? I’m sorry, but-”

A big hand clamped down around her mouth and she struggled. “You were taking a little too long in there,” a voice low and rough said in her ear, sounding nothing like the semi-drawl Barker had used earlier.

She struggled, realizing she very well might be in a fight for her life. The warning about some serial killer who might be coming after prostitutes flashed in the back of her mind.

She’d never thought it would happen to her.

Some of her escorts got a little rough, and she had no qualms about using her self-defense skills on them. But this was different. Barker used raw strength to subdue her.

Cold metal brushed against her wrist and she heard a “click” as handcuffs locked into place on one wrist. Her instincts screamed, “No!” She couldn’t let him gain control.

She fought back. Drawing on all her self-defense training, she used his strength against him. She kicked back and up, right into his balls, and he screamed. He pushed her down on the floor. As she stumbled, trying to get up, he pounced on her.

“Bitch!” He slapped her.

She struggled and he grabbed her arm with the handcuffs dangling from the wrist. From the corner of her eye she saw the floor lamp. She reached for it-her fingers brushed the base, but she wasn’t close enough to grab it.

Remember your training!

Training. Right. She took her free hand and went for his eyes, clawing at the one closest to her hand, grabbing onto the outer lid, and pulled.

He screamed, and released her other arm to hit her. Her head jerked to the side and she instantly knew her nose was broken.

She was scared, but she was also pissed off. He was just like her stepfather. Any woman who didn’t fall to her knees and comply with whatever sick game he had in mind was ripe to use as a punching bag.

She wasn’t going to die at the hands of some sick bastard who wanted to dominate women. She took her right hand, the one with the cuffs dangling from it, and with all her strength whacked him on the side of the head with the metal. Again. Again.

His cry of rage and pain scared her more than the threat itself. This man was not right in the head. She felt his hands on her throat, his thumbs pressed into her windpipe.

He was going to kill her.

No! She refused to die. She brought her hands up through the V his arms made and reached for his eyes again. She was gasping, her vision began to fade, but she grabbed the small bones on the outside of his eyes and squeezed. She didn’t know if the maneuver would work when Mr. Wolfe taught it to her all those years ago, but she felt the bones crack in her fingers and she held on. Barker screamed in pain and let go of her throat, reaching for her hands.

She whipped the handcuff again and it cut his face. His body shifted enough and she kicked and scrambled out from underneath. She didn’t worry about her purse. She ran straight for the door, jerked it open, and bolted down the hall. Screams failed to sound from her raw and bruised throat.

She ran to the staircase, unwilling to wait for the elevator. She didn’t know if he was chasing her, but she sprinted for her life down ten flights of stairs, not stopping until she burst into the lobby and into the arms of a very surprised hotel assistant manager who just happened to be walking by.

“Good God, ma’am, what happened?”

Her voice raw, blood from her broken nose clogging her throat, she sputtered, “My. Date. My date tried to kill me.” She gave the room number and the assistant manager carried her to the couch in his office while calling security to the room.

And fifteen minutes later, he was the one to tell her the man was gone.

CHAPTER 21

Rowan didn’t see John after the funeral. She didn’t understand why she felt oddly empty. After all, John had family and friends in from all over the country to pay respects to his brother. And Tess needed comfort and strength, something that John had in abundance.

But at three in the morning when Rowan woke from another nightmare, she wished he were there to hold her.

Foolish, she thought as reached under her pillow for her Glock and sat up in bed. She’d lived with her nightmares on and off for twenty-three years without relying on a man to comfort her. Why now? Why John?

She held the cold gun in her hands and stared into the darkness outside the large picture window. It was a moonless night, but the stars were so bright they seemed touchable.

Bobby, come for me. Please. I need this to be over.

Her inner strength began to melt. The carefully constructed wall that had protected her for so long crumbled at her feet. She was a trapped animal, pacing, pacing, pacing. Waiting for someone to come and shoot her. A mouse being toyed with by a cat. As soon as the mouse lost hope and cowered, the cat killed its prey.

Was that what Bobby was doing? Toying with her until she broke? Playing with her until she screamed with rage or retreated into her mind with insanity?

Did he want to turn her into their father? A hollow shell of a man, a victim of his weak mind and guilty conscience?

What if she didn’t give him what he wanted? What if she didn’t plead for mercy or beg for death? What if she simply stood there and took whatever he intended to give her?

It wasn’t John she thought of just then. It was Michael.

And Doreen and the Harpers and the florist and pretty Melissa Jane Acker.

She wouldn’t let Bobby win. Not for herself. For them. The victims of his glee, the down payment for his plans. They deserved justice. They deserved peace in the grave.

Peace would only come when Bobby was dead and buried and rotting in hell.

Sleep wasn’t going to come, she realized, as she threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side. She slipped into the running shoes that always had a place by the side of her bed and laced them in the dark.

Four in the morning. She couldn’t wake Quinn now for a run, but she’d love one as dawn crested over the Malibu mountains and lit the ocean. Five-thirty. Until then, maybe she could get some writing done. It had been weeks since she’d been able to write a word.

She quietly walked down the stairs and let herself into the den. She closed the door and booted her computer.

She wasn’t working on a fictional House of Terror. At least, she wasn’t writing the book she’d started three months ago. She’d realized after Doreen Rodriguez was killed she couldn’t write fiction anymore, at least not now. Maybe not ever. Not pretend murders and unreal evil.

But her new work was still called House of Terror. And her new work had the same crime.