OhGodOhGodOhGod. Yes, she'd heard the stories about the Iceman in the paper. The guy who'd been abducting women for the last few years. The man who froze their bodies and...kept them. Kept them so very long before he would call the cops, tipping them off to the locations. And those poor women would be found, so perfectly preserved, in freezers.
She looked up at Jason. His thick, dark hair. His perfect features. His gleaming eyes. That dimple. Dawn could only shake her head.
"The press should have realized it wasn't just one man committing the crimes," he said. "I mean, really, it's more like Icemen than Iceman."
"Not Tucker." Her breath heaved out. "You're lying!"
///
His eyes narrowed. "Why?" That bloody knife came back to her cheek. She knew he was going to cut her face. Dawn tried to brace herself for that pain. "Because you think you know him? Because he fucked you?"
She felt her face flame. Yes, he had. And Tucker had been her first. Her only. She loved him. She trusted him. She-
Jason laughed. Hard, deep laughter. "You are so clueless. Blood comes before anything else. Tuck has my back. He always has. He'll be here soon, and he'll prove the truth to you."
The tip of the knife pressed into her cheek, a shallow cut, taunting her.
"And you'll see the truth for yourself."
He turned away from her.
Dawn twisted her bleeding wrists behind her, struggling as hard as she could against the rope. Terror clawed at her insides as the stories of the Iceman's kills ran through her mind. All the victims had been young women-pretty, single. When their bodies had finally been recovered, they had been covered in slices. Stabbed again and again. Tortured. Then frozen in time...as if...as if the killer wanted to savor them.
I won't be another victim.
"They're alive when I put them in the freezer."
For an instant, her struggles ceased. Stunned, she could only stare at his broad back.
"I make sure of it," he added. "The cops haven't released that part to the media, but I always put them in the freezers when they're still breathing. I like for them to feel the cold sliding over them. I know it makes them long for the pain again." He looked back over his shoulder at her, and his profile... It is so like Tucker's. "I told you, before I'm done, you'll grow to like the pain."
No.
She yanked hard at the ropes and Dawn thought she felt them give...just a bit.
She also heard the growl of a car's engine outside the cabin.
His smile stretched. "Right on time. I'll go greet Tuck, then the real fun can get started."
She opened her mouth, ready to scream. She'd done that before, screamed endlessly, but he'd just laughed and said that no one was around to hear her.
This time, though, he leaped forward and slapped his hand over her mouth.
Anger hardened his face. "I'll be the one to talk with Tuck first." Then he slapped a gag on her in mere moments. He shoved it into her mouth, bloodying her lips even more, and then tied it behind her head. He stood in front of her as that growling engine came closer, and he leaned down, until they were eye to eye. "We are going to have so much fun with you."
He kissed her, putting his mouth right over the gag.
"I'll fuck you, too," he promised.
The tears fell again, but he'd already turned away. He rushed toward the cabin's door. Toward Tucker. And she kept yanking on the ropes that bound her wrists. He'd been so busy with the gag that he hadn't even checked to see if she was still securely tied.
The joke is on you, bastard. I'm not. The rope around her left wrist broke free.
* * *
TUCKER FROST PARKED his car and jumped out of the vehicle. A thousand stars glittered overhead as he approached the old cabin, a place that he damn well hated.
Jason should hate the place, too. He had no idea why his brother wanted to meet him there. The cabin held only bad memories. Memories Tucker wished that he could forget. He'd gone halfway around the world in an effort to banish that hell from his mind.
Insects chirped all around him. Frogs croaked, and down near the water he could hear the deep growl of a gator. Swamps weren't quiet-most folks had that wrong. Swamps were loud and busy, all the time. Especially at night.
And he hated this one swamp in particular. It was too full of dark secrets.
"About time you got here!"
His gaze lifted at his brother's voice, and he saw Jason bound out of the cabin. "I've been waiting over an hour for you to show up."
Tucker rolled back his shoulders. "I stopped by Dawn's dorm. I needed to talk to her." Because he'd gotten orders to ship out. A new mission. He wouldn't be back for a few months and he'd wanted to tell her the news face-to-face. Hell, he hated the idea of leaving her. Little Dawn Alexander. Who would have thought that she'd come to mean so much to him, so fast? He cleared his throat. "But she wasn't there."