Fear No Evil

He picked her up and tossed her into the water, away from the rocks at the base of the cliff. He followed. Together, they both swam to the boat and climbed in.

He scanned the cliff. Dammit, Kate! Where are you?

“Who are you looking for? Were they following us?”

“Someone who’s been helping me find you.”

Kate was nowhere.

Dillon cut the lead rope and started the motor. He’d get Lucy to the copter.

Then he’d go back for Kate.

Kate checked Denise’s pulse. Nothing. She was dead.

The man outside was dead.

Gunfire was coming from two places in the cabin. One down the hall where she’d heard breaking glass. The other from the nook that turned into a kitchen.

She was behind a heavy wood table. She’d heard the scream, the gunfire, the breaking glass.

Please, Dillon. Get Lucy out now!

“Where is she?”

A man she didn’t recognize came out of the kitchen.

She needed to take her time. She had half a clip left. She couldn’t afford to waste the bullets. The gun she’d taken from the dead man outside had already been emptied.

Where was Roger Morton?

Roger emerged from the hall. “Someone took the girl. I’m going after them.” He ran past Kate’s hiding place.

The other man called out, “Where’s that bitch who killed Denise?”

“Hell if I know, she probably escaped with the girl!”

Roger left through the sliding glass doors and the second man hesitated, then followed.

Kate immediately left her hiding place and went to the room down the hall where Lucy had been held captive. Deja vu hit her again as she stared at the broken camera, the broken window. Paige.

A naked man, bleeding, crawled toward her in the doorway.

She shot him in the head, imagining that he was Trask and she’d been in time to save Paige.

She jumped out the window, saw movement in the trees. A naked chest. Heard the startled cry of a girl in a dark green shirt.

Dillon had given his sister his shirt.

She had to buy them time to get to the boat.

She ran around the deck making noise. She fired into the air, then ran into the second man.

He was young, couldn’t be more than twenty. The realization startled Kate. She’d been expecting Roger.

But being young didn’t make him less of a killer. He raised his gun.

She was faster. Three pumps into his chest. He didn’t get a round off.

“Richie?”

Roger’s voice came from around the cabin. He emerged from the direction Dillon and Lucy had run from.

He saw Kate. “You fucking bitch!” He raised his gun. “I should have known it was you.”

Kate dove for cover, off the deck and into bushes. Hot, burning pain hit her upper arm and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out.

She pulled her tank top over her head-she had the black one over a white one-and tied it around her arm where Roger’s bullet had sliced cleanly through her skin. She leaned against a tree to catch her breath.

“Where’s the girl?” Roger called. Close. Too close.

Kate stood, got her bearings, exposed herself, and fired once, twice.

She missed, but Roger fell to the ground, giving her enough time to run.

Away from Dillon and Lucy. To give them time to get the hell off the island.

She could swim. She didn’t want to think what the salt water would do to the bullet wound in her arm, but maybe she’d be lucky. Maybe she’d get to kill the bastard who’d raped Paige and Lucy and a half-dozen other women.

She counted the shots she’d fired in her head.

Dammit, she only had one bullet. She’d better make it count.

She ran.

Trask watched on the webcam as the man jumped through the window and kicked Frank in the face.

When he received the message that the outer perimeter had been breached, he’d tried to reach Roger. Nothing. What good was he if Trask couldn’t count on him when it mattered? Roger had used his silence twenty years ago to demand trust. “I never said anything about Trevor, did I? I never said anything about Monique. You can trust me, you know that, right?”

Fucking idiot.

Now his prize had been stolen. Frank was dying. For all he knew Roger and Denise were dead, too.

And Dillon Kincaid-the last man Trask thought would come after Lucy-had shot Frank and destroyed his show. He took his girl. Monique.

No, no, Lucy. Monique was already dead.

Trask slammed his hand on the dashboard of the Hummer. He was at the docks at Anacortes, but he didn’t dare go out to the island now. Not with the feds this close.

That fucking Mick Mallory. He must have figured out where they were. Alerted someone.

Kate. She’d been in contact with the Kincaids. Her fingerprints were all over this travesty.

Damn, damn, damn! First his money gone. He’d lost more than half his wealth in minutes. Minutes! Then his people.

He should never have trusted anyone. Hadn’t he learned that before?

His father. The whores. His own mother turning her back on him after he was expelled. Roger and Paul, weak, needy fools.

No one had ever stood by him. He could only depend on himself. Everything he knew, everything he was, was due to his intelligence, his foresight, his vision. No one had seen the potential of the Internet until he had launched his online pornography company. No one saw the potential of fantasy role-playing until he did it first.

Because he understood the darkest fantasies of human nature. He harbored them. He’d harbored them his entire life.

Everything was crumbling, but Trask felt free for the first time in years. Everyone he had mistakenly trusted was dead. Now he could go after Kate Donovan on his own. No cameras, nothing but her and him and his hands on her neck.

He’d keep her alive for a long, long time. Long enough to crush her soul before he watched her blood flow.

But first he had a need. Lucy had been stolen from him. In nine hours she should have been dying underneath him.

Someone else would fill her role. An understudy.

He looked around the dock. The day was warm and bright, hundreds of people out in boats and walking along the dock, shopping, taking in the sun.

He spied a lone woman. A little old for him. But she had short blond hair like Kate. Tall and skinny. Walking toward her sporty little car.

He got behind the wheel of his Hummer and followed her. She would go home eventually, and he had backup recording equipment in his car. If she had a family, he’d kill them first. If she lived alone, all the better.

He hoped she lived in the country where her screams couldn’t be heard by neighbors.