Seconds to Live(102)
Where was Mac?
She pulled up next to the Town Car and scanned the area, but the torrential rain limited her visibility. Headlights swept down the entrance ramp, but they were too high to be another SFPD cruiser.
A pickup truck parked next to her, and Grant Barrett got out. He walked to the side of her vehicle. Stella stepped out of her car. Grant didn’t seem to notice the rain soaking his cargo shorts and T-shirt. Within seconds water plastered his short, blond hair to his head. His only response was to blink.
“A backup unit is on the way.” Stella wiped water from her forehead. “He was driving my grandfather’s car.” Stella turned toward her grandfather’s vehicle.
She took a pair of gloves from her pocket and put them on before opening the Lincoln’s door. Mac’s cell phone sat on the console. She grabbed the phone and slid it into her pocket under her jacket.
Grant was headed toward the bridge support. Stella ran to catch up. She grabbed his arm. “Be careful where you step. This could be a crime scene.”
Please let me be wrong.
He nodded grimly, stopping as soon as they were under the protection of the stone arch. The dirt was disturbed.
“Here are footprints.” Grant crouched and pointed to the ground. “Stella . . .”
She bent low. Scattered in the dirt were tiny colored discs the size of confetti. “Taser confetti.”
Her vision fuzzed as the implication settled in. “He was lured here with a message from Gianna’s phone. Then someone tased him.”
Grant’s face went hard. “And took him.”
She nodded, emptiness sliding through her body as if her blood was thinned with anesthetic.
The killer had Mac.
The best man she’d ever known. The man who made her heart thump and her pulse thicken with one blink of his clear blue eyes. The man who would kill or die for her.
“I have to call this in. We can trace the serial numbers on the Taser confetti.”
As she ran for the car, she saw another equally frightening sight on the muddy edges of the dried earth under the bridge: wheelbarrow tracks.
He had to work quickly. Succinylcholine was a fast-acting paralytic commonly used for emergency intubation. The injection would only last fifteen minutes, and he most definitely did not want Mac Barrett able to fight back.
Which was why he’d used the Taser.
He wouldn’t stand a chance if the fight was fair. Cheating was his only option.
Getting a full-grown man in and out of the trunk proved challenging, and one of the reasons he’d limited his subjects to women until this point.
But this would be worth the effort.
Mac was The One.
Not a victim, but a deeply flawed hero.
He could feel it in his bones. He sped toward his house and opened the bulkhead doors. The specially built ramp led straight down to the basement. He pushed the wheelbarrow through a growing puddle past the heavy wooden door. He didn’t have time to put Mac in the cell. No, he’d have to go straight to the reception room. Mac had to be restrained by the time the drug wore off. Pushing the wheelbarrow through the doorway, he lowered the treatment table and transferred Mac to it, sliding his upper body across the gap first, and then following with his legs. He carefully secured his wrists to the handrails with handcuffs. He didn’t trust simple rope with a strong, healthy man. Leather medical restraint straps buckled across Mac’s hips and around his ankles.
The Hulk couldn’t break those binds.
Satisfied, he stepped back and mopped the sweat from his forehead. The cool of the basement was a welcome reprieve from the muggy summer temperature above ground.
Now to prepare for the first stage. He wheeled the rolling tray to the side of the bed. Mac’s fingers twitched.
“Oh good. You’re waking up.” He mopped his forehead with a cloth. “Got you here just in time.”
He took a pair of scissors from the blue sterile cloth and cut Mac’s T-shirt up the center to reveal a square bandage taped to his ribs. “What’s this?”
Mac grunted. He’d be able to talk soon.
He peeled back the medical tape and exposed a long, stitched wound that wrapped round Mac’s side. “What happened?”
No answer, but Mac’s eyes were angry.
Anger was new. He’d never had a victim get mad. It was a very good sign that he’d finally made the right choice.
“Where should we start?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Stella paced the conference room in front of the murder board. Grant was in his truck making a phone call, probably to his sister. Horner was gathering more forces while Stella desperately tried to eliminate possible locations where two victims could be held prisoner.
He had Mac.
He had Gianna.
Visions of the two tortured victims assaulted her mind. She tried to push them away, but every time she pivoted, autopsy photos pinned to the board pummeled her: fresh, full-color reminders of what had happened to his previous victims. Terror scraped through her, its icy talons tearing at the hope inside her chest. What was he doing to them right now? Were they even still alive?