Private Affair(88)

She clenched her teeth, fighting a surge of panic. She was in the underground room Max had described to her.

Had she been in this place before? She couldn’t be sure, but Max’s account was vivid in her mind. This was the room under the cabin that he had inspected the other day.

She fought terror—and tears. If she’d tried to imagine the worst thing that could have happened to her, this was it. That is, the worst thing besides losing Max. And at least she could comfort herself that he was safe. Troy had gone after her—not him.

She closed her eyes, desperately wanting to shut out reality. It was tempting to withdraw into herself. Maybe that was the way she had coped when…

She cut off that thought. How she’d coped in the past wasn’t important. Right now, she knew that if she shut down, she would end up dead, like Angela and Claire. Clenching her fists, she willed herself to coherence. But the last things she remembered sent a shudder through her. Troy had been dressed like a hospital staffer, and he’d come into the ladies room with a gun. He’d taken her down the stairs and outside. Then he’d put something wet over her nose and mouth, and then she had woken up here.

When she shivered and tried to wrap her arms around her shoulders, she found her wrists were tied together. So were her ankles. And the wrists were linked to a chain that was fastened to a stake pounded through the floor to her right. It gave her enough room to sit up, which she did. Leaning over, she pulled at the stake with her bound hands. It didn’t budge, and she wondered if it was cemented into the ground below the wood floor. Max hadn’t mentioned it. Which must mean it was newly planted—for her.

A sound a few feet away made her focus on the entrance to the room, which was nothing more than a large, dark rectangle.

As she watched, Troy Masters came in and sat down on a plump red cushion across from her.

“What are you doing, Troy?” she asked.

“What do you think?”

“You’re going to kill me, like you killed Claire.”

“No. Do you think I wanted to kill you at the farm?”

She answered with a small nod.

“You’re wrong. I was using her to get to you. I was going to take you away then.”

“But you shot at me,” she blurted.

“Because you had a gun. You were shooting at me.”

“I was defending myself.”

He made a dismissive sound. “You don’t have a gun now. And now we can spend some quality time together. Like we did ten years ago.”

The words or the tone of his voice made her heart start to clunk inside her chest, but she wasn’t going to ask what he had planned. She remembered him hustling her out of the hospital, and she remembered dropping her credit card. Had Jack found it? And even if he hadn’t, the men would have to know she was missing by now. But would Max think to look for her here? She prayed that he would. Otherwise she was on her own.

Then another thought intruded and made her go cold. Max would come looking for her, all right, but he was in the hospital—in no shape to confront anyone—especially a crazed killer with a gun.

Troy Masters.

He’d already talked to her a little. Would he answer questions? Or was questioning him dangerous? He’d already killed a lot of people. There was no reason to keep her alive unless he wanted to. And for how long?

***

Jack had looked up the location of Larson’s house. For a suburban property, it was on a fairly large, wooded plot of land. He made the turn into the driveway and stopped well away from the house. Drawing his gun, he started for the building, staying in the trees.

When he reached the side of the driveway, he hurried across and looked in one of the garage windows. There were two cars inside. One was a late model Lexus that looked like the owner kept it washed and polished. The other was a cheap Chevy. But outside the garage was something even more interesting—an unmarked cop car. So the police were here? Which meant that he’d better put away his gun if he didn’t want to get shot.

He holstered the weapon and moved toward the house, wondering what to do next. Again, because he didn’t want to get shot, he rang the doorbell and waited. When nobody answered, he tried the knob and found it was locked.

The setup gave him a bad feeling. It was too quiet here, like nobody was home. But he knew that couldn’t be true. Using his shirttail, he wiped off the knob, then started around the house, looking in the windows.

When he got to the rear of the property, he stopped. A sliding glass door was half open. But this was an expensive house, and the owner was unlikely to just leave the place unlocked.

Was this some sort of trap? Were the cops lying in wait for someone to show up?